Oceanside, CA asked in Estate Planning for California

Q: How to set up a trust for your beneficiaries, while waiting for payment on a parents trust to be distributed?

Mom died, properties need to be sold to distribute to beneficiaries. I am a beneficiary due to inherit about $500,000. I have cancer. How can I make my own trust for people I want to be my beneficiary, when I don't yet have the amount I am due to receive from my moms trust? It will take a long time to sell numerous properties my mom owned and I don't know if I will live long enough. Can I put something in my own trust so this inheritance I will receive will avoid probate and pass to whom I want it to? I would like to avoid probate for the people I love.

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1 Lawyer Answer
James Edward Berge
James Edward Berge
Answered
  • Estate Planning Lawyer
  • San Jose, CA
  • Licensed in California

A: Assuming it's possible in your mom's trust, assign in writing all of your right, title and interest in your mom's trust to your revocable living trust. It's possible if your mom's trust does not have a standard spendthrift provision in it. If it does, then you'll have to create a standard Will and leave everything in your estate (which would include your unpaid inheritance from your mom's trust) to your trust. If that trust does not yet exist, create one. You should be able to avoid a probate of your inheritance if the Will references the trust, and the trust includes in a Schedule of Assets which references your right to the inheritance, especially in combination with your written assignment of that inheritance to the trust.

Nina Whitehurst agrees with this answer

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