A: It's going to depend on what your goal is for the life insurance policy and what sort of access you want to have for that policy. If you want to have access to cash value that’s within the life insurance policy, then you want a revocable trust. A revocable trust allows you the flexibility to add assets to your trust and to have full access to all of the income and assets within your trust. You can decide who you want to leave those assets to, when they'll get access to it, how they'll be able to access it, and how those assets can be managed within the trust. What does funding your trust mean? Funding your trust just means transferring your assets to the trust and either making the trust the owner or making the trust the beneficiary. When we’re talking about funding your trust with life insurance, where you want to have access to the cash value, it's going to need to be a revocable trust. However, if you have tax issues, or have a lot of money and are trying to figure out how to reduce taxes, then you may want to consider an irrevocable trust. You’re most likely going to want to include a term-life policy because you’re not going to have access to cash value if you use a whole-life. For some people this may not be an issue because they have so many assets that they are not necessarily worried about getting access to the cash value of the whole-life policy, it tends to be a longer term, and you don’t have to be concerned about getting a new policy. Your goals will dictate exactly which policy you are going to use and which one will you use to fund your trust. The benefit of having an revocable trust is flexibility. Although it becomes irrevocable when you pass, when you create it you have all of the flexibility during your lifetime to make changes and once you pass away, everything is locked into place. No one, not even your loved ones, will be able to make changes to your trust once it becomes irrevocable. A revocable trust is also created under your identification since it uses your social security number, so essentially you will own the assets in the trust but it provides you with some anonymity because of the way that you can title assets in the trust, which can make it harder for people to find your assets. That being said, a revocable trust is not really an asset protection trust. What it does do, is it helps to put your wishes in place, keep your assets private, and helps avoid probate. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: The short answer is yes. If your estate is over $12.6 million on the federal level, or about $5.7 million on the state level (depending on the state) you can have more than one trust. If you have more assets than that, then you would have to pay estate tax on the amount that’s above those numbers. So if you’re in a state that doesn’t have estate tax, then you will only have to worry about the federal $12.6 million. However, if you’re in a state that does have estate tax and you’re above $5.6 million, than you’re facing potentially having to pay estate tax, which is 40% of everything above that $5.6 million. So when you take some of those assets out of your estate and put them in an irrevocable trust why does it come out of your estate? Because an irrevocable trust doesn’t use your personal identification (social security number). It has its own EIN number (tax ID number), and almost operates like a business entity. Because of this, you will no longer own the assets and you will need to put a third party in charge of this. Which means you can’t be the trustee of that trust, but you can assign someone(whomever you would like) to be the trustee and it doesn’t have to be a professional company. Now when you do that, you still may have to pay some estate taxes, however, not everything that appreciates within an irrevocable trust is taxable to your estate. It does pay taxes, just like you would pay income taxes, but it's not taxable to your estate at the same 40% rate. People who have both types of trusts (irrevocable and revocable) usually do so because one trust gives you certain levels of flexibility with assets that you know you’re going to need to fully access (revocable), and then the other one allows you to put some assets that you don’t really need to access in the same way (irrevocable). For example, a lot of times when people see that their estate is getting above those limits, they may consider removing certain things (like their term-life insurance policy) and putting that in an irrevocable trust. Things that you may consider removing are going to be those that you are not really concerned about or that you don’t need to access to keep you under those limits. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: A Will is a legal document as is a Trust, and they both leave instructions on what will happen with your assets when you pass away. The major difference is that with a Will, you need the assistance of the court to facilitate the transfer of your assets to your loved ones. A common misconception is that if you have a Will, then you won’t have to go to court, and your family will automatically receive your assets. A Will does help to clarify what assets you would like distributed and to whom, but when you have complicated family situations such as multiple children, no children but other family members (such as siblings, aunts, uncles etc.), or you want to disinherit somebody, Wills can cause conflict amongst family members because when someone passes away with a Will, it needs to go through a court process known as probate in order to administer the assets. Once a Will has been filed in court, it becomes public information and anyone can go online and see what was left in that Will and to whom. You may have heard about or seen this happen to celebrities. When a Will is filed, the court says “Alright, you have to notify every single person who was related, who could have potentially received a benefit, and you also need to notify anyone else who was named in the Will”. With a Trust, however, this information is private. It never has to be filed in court, and you're not required to go to court. What your beneficiaries will get and all the information that you leave within that document is private. Deciding on whether to have a Trust or Will or both, will depend on your goals. Do you care if the information is public? Does it matter to you that your Will has to go through probate, takes time, and will incur additional cost to your estate (depending on how complex it is)? Those are things you will want to consider, and if those things are important to you, then you may want to consider creating a Trust to alleviate those things, maintain your privacy, and set up your family to be able to receive those assets without potential conflicts. A trust also becomes really important when you have small children who need to be cared for, because they don't have to wait for the court, especially if you don’t have a responsible adult who’s going to do all the legwork to make sure they get the assets. As a business owner, having a Trust is also important because your business still needs to be able to run without having to wait on the court to do what they have to do. Lastly, you may want to have a Trust depending on where you are with your assets. Generally speaking, if you have over $100K in assets or have complex enough assets (for example, multiple businesses), you should consider setting up a trust. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: A Living Will and a Will are two separate things. A Living Will is actually a set of instructions that you leave to your healthcare proxy on what to do if you become incapacitated (for example if you are diagnosed with a terminal illness and you’re on life support, do you want to be fed artificially? Do you want to be kept on life support? Etc.) A Will is a legal document that provides instructions on what will happen with your assets when you pass away, and who it will be left to. A Will also needs to be probated upon your passing. A Living Will does not need to be filed with the court. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: A Trust is essentially a contract. It’s a legal document that you provide instructions to, to say “While I’m alive, I’ll be the one who’s going to carry out these instructions on how my assets will be handled. When I pass away, I have elected someone (a trustee) who is going to be responsible to follow all these directions that I have provided in this trust." A Trust Fund is one type of Trust. Typically, it's going to be an Irrevocable Trust because even if it was revocable, the person has passed away, now rendering it irrevocable. The "fund" part of a Trust Fund consists of the assets that are within that trust and/or say a bank account that has actual liquidity (cash). Yes, if you are going to create a Trust, you absolutely want to have your LLC within that trust. The other great thing about doing so is that the LLC has liability protection, so as long you’re not doing anything illegal then you are shielded from potential lawsuits or other things that may go wrong in your business versus the assets in your Trust. Your business is also an asset that you will want to also pass down, so it's something you want to include in your Trust. You also want to make sure that when it comes to putting your assets (your business entity, bank accounts, life insurance, investment accounts, and retirement accounts), that you make your Trust the beneficiary of that as well. These are the type of things your Trust will own or your Trust will benefit from so that when you pass away, your loved ones will be able to inherit them. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: Typically, no, but we usually recommend at least over $100,000 in assets and/or having real estate because real estate tends to be difficult in most states when it has to go through the court system, since you can’t just put it as a beneficiary. If you have over $100,000 in assets and you have real estate then you should be considering at least a revocable trust because if for example, you also have a will, having a trust in place can help bypass having to go through the court. That said, you don’t need a minimum amount of assets and you don’t have to have a minimum amount of insurance, any amount of insurance or assets can be used to be fund the trust. You should consult an experienced and trusted estate planning attorney/firm like ourselves who can guide you on if a trust is the right fit for you by taking a look at all of your assets and determining what the cost of probate could potentially cost your family. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A. You should always reach out to a trusted estate planning attorney/law firm like us to draft your trust. If you choose to hire us to help plan your legacy, we will send you an intake form to gather information on all of your assets, have a Zoom call with you to go over your assets and work together to determine the best plan for you, draft the trust (creating the instructions that you want within that trust), provide it to you for review, and then go over everything with you to make sure you understand and that it contains all of your wishes. Once you confirm that the trust has been drafted with everything that you wanted to include, we will schedule you to come and sign your trust documents. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A. Professional trustees are usually trust companies and typically have a fixed rate of about 1-1.5%. Their fees may vary by law, but it's mostly standard across the board because they usually manage trusts nationwide. They may have a minimum however, for those with smaller estates. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A. The short answer is that it depends. We always recommend using a trusted estate planning attorney/law firm like ourselves to draft your estate planning documents. The cost to draft a trust will depend on the attorney/law firm and how complicated your assets are and/or your strategy is. So typically, when we meet with clients, we show them their different options, what the associated costs will be based on what they're looking for, and work with them to pick the package that works best for their needs and budget. If you’re acting as the trustee of your revocable trust, however, there are no annual or monthly fees, once your trust is created, you will just be managing it. If you have an irrevocable trust, you cannot be the trustee, so if you would like to have a loved one manage it you can, or you can have a trust company manage your trust, but there may be fees associated with that, and if you have investments, there may also be additional costs. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: It will depend on your assets and personal circumstances. You should evaluate your assets and see if it will be cheaper to go through probate or to get a trust. You can also build on your estate planning. You can start off with a will, and as you obtain more assets, you can then revisit if a trust is needed. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: A benefit of having a trust as opposed to only a will, is that unlike a will where you can outline what you would like but not for the long-term, a trust allows you to outline your wishes in the long term and also provide more detailed instructions. For example, if you state in your Will that you want your children to just get your assets, that is how it will be carried out. However, if for example you want your child to get 10% at 20 years old, another 15% at 25 years old, and another 20% at 30 years old, because you just want them to benefit from the income, and you only have a will, the court will not honor that because they’re not going to manage your estate for the duration of the timeline that you created. What they will do, is order that a trust be created and that these instructions be put in the trust, and then they will appoint someone to manage the trust. If the court determines that the person who you selected within your trust is “suitable” then they’ll put that person in place as trustee. If the court determines that the person is not creditworthy or responsible, they will not allow your trustee to manage the trust and will select someone of their choosing, and that person will be paid from your estate. The court will then have the trust created and with those instructions to be carried out. If you have a trust in place during your lifetime however, you can avoid the court having to create one on your behalf, and you can create a set of instructions that states how you want your beneficiaries to receive your assets, indicate any rules you would like to put in place (i.e. I want them to have financial literacy, I want them to finish school, only use the trust funds to start a business, or only use it to buy a house, etc.) Having a trust allows you the flexibility to be creative with the things you would like to include in your trust during your lifetime instead of leaving it up to a judge who doesn’t know you, your family, or your wishes, to make guesses based upon the facts that are in front of them as to what they should do. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A. No, you can still put the property in the irrevocable trust. This is actually one of the reasons why you would use an irrevocable trust, because in situations like this where you have senior citizens who have assets you want to protect, they can take advantage of things like Medicaid Planning. However, if Medicaid already has liens attached to the property, those would need to be satisfied before you can put the property into the trust and the 5-year look back will apply. Please email legacy@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information or how you can get started with your legacy planning. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: It depends on the nature of your business. It’s not a one size fits all. If you are ready to proceed with forming a business entity, please email business@franco-lawfirm.com or use the “Contact Us” form so that we may further assist you. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.

A: Generally speaking, an S-Corp would be be best. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney and speak to an account/CPA. Please email business@franco-lawfirm.com or use our “Contact Us” form for further information. Disclaimer: Please note that these answers are for informational purposes only and should NOT be considered legal advice. Neither The Ambitious Legacy Firm, P.C. nor Sabine K. Franco Esq. are your legal counsel unless we formally enter into an attorney/client relationship by signing a formal engagement letter/service agreement. This also means that any and all information shared is NOT covered under attorney-client privilege. However, you should always have your specific situation evaluated by an attorney.