What makes your Living Trust legal?

No attorney in his/her right mind wants his/her clients to know what it is that makes a trust legal. To learn what makes a trust legal would open the eyes of the client to the realization that the client did not need the attorney in the first place!

To understand the legalities of a Living Trust you must have a firm understanding of two factors:

1. What your trust is attempting to accomplish
2. The long-standing fiduciary laws by which all financial custodians must abide

To say that your trust is attempting to accomplish the "avoidance of probate" is not enough. What you really are trying to accomplish is to convince your financial custodians that they can safely release your assets to your heirs after your die, free from the fear of lawsuit by disgruntled and disinherited heirs, without the need of a guarantee from Probate Court. That is the name of the game!

Let’s consider for a moment your assets as you presently hold them in sole ownership, joint ownership and corporations:

The moment your financial custodians accepted your assets for safekeeping in these privately held accounts they obligated themselves to return those assets to you upon your demand. This obligation did not come about out of the goodness of their hearts. They would much rather continue to borrow money from you via your deposits at 1 to 1.5 percent and then loan the money back to you at 9 percent (Their stockholders rightfully believe this to be a great way for them to get rich). Instead, that obligation to return your money upon demand came about from inflexible Fiduciary Laws that have guarded the hard-earned savings of the public for centuries.

No one suddenly decides to become a banker or stockbroker and then hangs out a shingle that says "Open for Business." Though they are privately owned, banks, credit unions, stockbrokers, etc. are chartered (licensed) by the federal or state government and must agree to certain regulations such as guarding your assets to best of their ability and returning your assets to you the moment you make that request, no questions asked.

Because of this legal obligation to return your privately held assets upon demand, the legality of any account must be determined when the account is opened and funds deposited or invested, not at the time the funds are withdrawn. When you open a new bank account you must fill out an application and answer a few simple questions. When you want the money back you fill out only a withdrawal slip, take it to the teller and say "give me my money." You don’t even have to say "please" if you don’t want to.

Questions? How to contact Gordon Mead Bennett immediately!

Applying common sense

Now, comes the moment of truth attorneys would rather you not understand. This fiduciary obligation of the financial custodian to return the asset upon demand is not diminished by the fact that the asset is owned by a trust. The financial custodian is legally bound to return the asset to the trustee of the trust the moment that trustee asks for it. To refuse to release the asset to the trustee would be tantamount to a bank denying you access to the funds you currently hold privately in that bank. The state banking commission would have them shut down and put out of business within days.

No court, no attorney, no judge has anything to say about the legality of your trust. The magic moment when you trust becomes legal is that instant when on the strength of the details written in your trust contract your financial custodian accepts your assets for safekeeping in an account owned by your trust. That acceptance of your assets into those trust accounts by your financial custodian guarantees that those assets must be released to the control of your successor trustee immediately upon your death.

That is exactly what you set out to accomplish:

The release of your assets by your financial custodians after your die, free from the fear of lawsuit by disgruntled and disinherited heirs, without the need of a guarantee from Probate Court.

The successor trustee, now using the authority given him/her through the bylaws of trust contract, simply turns around and give those assets to the beneficiaries named by the trust grantor(s) in the trust contract which terminates the trust.

What this all means is that an attorney has absolutely nothing to sell you other than a simple contract between you and your trustee - you and you! (How complex must that document be to keep you from cheating yourself?) It also means that any intimidating threats made by an attorney that you will get in terrible trouble by not employing the attorney to "establish the trust" are baseless and nothing more than a thinly veiled attempt to line his/her own pockets.

Whether you pay $495 or $2,495 for your trust documents there is no such thing as an illegal Living Trust.