Legacy Protection in Albany, GA - safeguard your retirement savings

What You Need to Know about Legacy Protection

A legacy protection plan can help your heirs avoid a lengthy and costly time in probate court, but it can also protect your wealth for your beneficiaries. Our financial advisors can help you create an asset protection plan that allows you to leave a legacy for your heirs while protecting your wealth. We can accomplish this by using a basic revocable living trust, a legacy trust, or an asset protection trust.

Basic Revocable Living Trust

A basic revocable living trust allows you to keep control over your assets while you live. Upon your death, the trust continues to be managed by a professional financial, which protects your beneficiaries from mismanaging their money. A basic revocable living trust is a great option to provide for minor children or dependents who need help with managing their money. Your trust can designate a specific age when your beneficiaries can receive their inheritance, such as age 25, 30, or 35.

Legacy Trust

While a basic revocable living trust simplifies the inheritance process, it doesn’t protect your beneficiaries when life doesn’t go as planned. For example, a divorce, the death of a beneficiary, creditor obligations, and bankruptcies can deplete the assets of the trust. With a legacy trust, you can provide lifetime asset protection. For example, if your children pass away, the assets in the trust would go to your grandchildren instead of their spouses.

Asset Protection Trust

While a basic revocable living trust and a legacy trust solve the inheritance problem, neither will protect you from a lawsuit or the cost of long-term care. An asset protection trust, if you follow the terms of the trust, can offer protection from lawsuits. It also won’t prevent you from being eligible for long-term care programs. With an asset protection trust, your assets will go to your beneficiaries instead of the nursing home. The downsides to asset protection trusts include the added cost and complication of managing the trust.

Importance of Legacy Planning & Protection

Which type of trust makes more sense for you depends on your specific situation. Our financial advisors can help you understand the different rules and options for each trust. We’ll also help you with your other legacy planning, ensuring that your beneficiaries don’t have to battle things out in probate court and waste precious time and money. Settling your estate and creating a legacy plan is the best gift you can offer your beneficiaries, and we’re here to simplify the process.

FAQs about Legacy Protection

What’s the Difference between a Trust and a Will?

With a will, you merely divide up your earthly possessions, including your investment accounts, your home, and your personal belongings. With a trust, you have more control over the assets even after you die. For example, you can have a financial advisor manage the trust fund and provide your beneficiaries with an income instead of a lump-sum amount, or you can make them wait until they come of age to inherit before they have access to the money.

What Are the Benefits of Setting Up a Trust?

When you set up a trust, you can avoid a lengthy and costly probate. A trust also gives you more control over what happens to your assets. You can even protect your beneficiary’s assets from creditors and bankruptcy. Finally, an asset protection trust allows you to protect your wealth from a lawsuit and can’t be included when calculating income to pay towards long-term care costs when determining eligibility.

How Can a Financial Advisor Protect My Legacy?

Our team of financial advisors can help you protect your legacy by creating a legacy plan. We’ll make sure your beneficiaries don’t have to go through probate, which is expensive and time-consuming. We’ll advise you on how to structure your wealth to provide for your beneficiaries, protect the assets, and ensure your wishes are met.

Contact Us to Protect Your Legacy

If you want to protect your wealth for yourself and your beneficiaries, we recommend creating a legacy plan. A legacy plan can include setting up a trust, which allows you to designate beneficiaries during your lifetime. Different trusts also offer additional asset protection from creditors, bankruptcy, divorce, and lawsuits. Talk to our staff at Artesian Financial to set up an appointment for your legacy protection planning.