Cumberland Living Trusts Lawyers

Our Cumberland living trust lawyers can help you set up your trust. At Kelly & West, we have been preparing living trusts for nearly thirty years, and are committed to making sure your loved ones are taken care of and your assets are distributed as you wish. Don’t try and figure out the complicated system alone, let us help you so you can rest assure your wishes will be taken care of.

Why Trust our Cumberland Living Trusts Lawyers?

Assuring that they are financially secure after you pass away is one of the most important things you can do for your family. And, for your peace of mind. If you don’t have a living trust in place at the time of your death, the State of North Carolina — not you — determines how your assets are distributed. A Cumberland living trust is a trust you create while you are alive, as opposed to one that is created after your death.

Placing your assets — your money, possessions, real estate and investments — in a living trust allows you to determine how such assets will be distributed directly to your beneficiaries when you die. Without such a trust, even if you have a will, all these assets must first go through probate, abiding by the laws of the State of North Carolina.

To go through probate means that without a trust, the value of all your assets must be determined and then taxes and debts must be paid. This involves an expensive, very complicated, potentially emotional process. It requires the expense of using probate lawyers and going to court.

Only after that process is complete does the remainder go to the people you love. When you establish a trust, your estate does not go through probate. You place all your assets in the trust. Then you name the person, including yourself, if you wish, to be the trustor, i.e.,  the one who controls how the trust assets are used.

After your death, your assets go directly to the beneficiaries you have named. These people are called successor trustees. You can change the trust at any time.