Trust Attorney for Revocable, Irrevocable and Living Trusts in Illinois

By changing the name on the title. A revocable living trust is a written agreement under the Illinois Trust Code, 760 ILCS 3, in which you transfer assets to a trustee, usually yourself, to hold for you during life and for your named beneficiaries after death. Because the trust holds title, the successor trustee you named can distribute the assets at death without a probate case, and can manage them if you are incapacitated. You can amend or revoke it at any time, and it only works for assets actually transferred into it.

Most families need a revocable trust: it avoids probate, plans for incapacity and keeps you in full control. An irrevocable trust gives up control in exchange for something a revocable trust cannot provide, such as removing life insurance or gifted assets from your taxable estate, or holding funds for a person with a disability without affecting benefits. If your goal is probate avoidance and incapacity planning, revocable. If your goal is estate-tax reduction or benefits planning, irrevocable, and we will explain exactly what you give up.

Funding means changing ownership. For real estate, a deed from you to yourself as trustee, recorded with the Cook County Clerk. For bank and brokerage accounts, retitling with the institution. For an LLC or corporation, an assignment of the interest and, usually, an amendment to the operating agreement. For life insurance and retirement accounts, a beneficiary change rather than a transfer, done carefully because naming a trust as the beneficiary of a retirement account has income-tax consequences. We prepare the deed and the instructions for each asset.

A revocable trust does not; its assets are still yours for tax purposes. What reduces Illinois estate tax is how the trust is drafted for a married couple and whether assets are moved out of the estate during life. Because the $4,000,000 Illinois exclusion is not portable between spouses, a joint plan can leave the first spouse's exclusion unused unless the trust creates a credit-shelter or Illinois QTIP share at the first death. Irrevocable trusts holding life insurance or gifts take those assets out of the taxable estate altogether.

The fee depends on the number of assets to retitle, whether a business interest or out-of-state property is involved, whether the trust needs estate-tax or special-needs provisions, and how many people and contingencies it must cover. A trust-based plan costs more than a will-based plan up front and is designed to save a probate case later. We quote it in writing after the first meeting, and the quote includes the deed and the funding work, not just the document.

Not always. A home in your sole name passes through probate unless it is in a trust, held in joint tenancy, or covered by a recorded transfer on death instrument. If the house is your main asset and you have one straightforward beneficiary, a transfer on death instrument may be enough. If you have minor children, a blended family, several properties, or want a trustee to manage things if you are incapacitated, a trust is the better tool. We will tell you which at the first meeting.

A trust that holds money for a person with a disability so that it supplements, rather than replaces, means-tested benefits such as Medicaid and SSI. A third-party special needs trust is funded with a parent's or grandparent's money and has no payback to the state. A first-party trust under 42 U.S.C. §1396p(d)(4)(A) holds the disabled person's own money, must be set up before age 65, and must repay Medicaid at death. The trustee pays for things the benefits do not cover and never gives cash to the beneficiary.

You, while you are able, for a revocable trust. After that, someone organized, honest and willing to take direction from the document: often a spouse, then an adult child, then a bank or trust company if no family member fits. The trustee must keep trust assets separate, keep records, treat beneficiaries fairly and file the trust's tax returns. Naming two siblings as co-trustees who do not get along is the most common mistake we see; a sole trustee with a named successor is usually cleaner.