I recently heard a popular estate planning guru boldly make the following statement: “Everyone should have a living revocable trust.” Because of this person’s popularity in social media circles I saw many blind followers respond in ‘knee jerk’ fashion by spending several thousands of dollars to creatively construct living trusts to distribute their assets when they die.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m not opposed to living trusts (sometimes called inter-vivos trusts).They can be helpful estate planning tools. I have created numerous living trusts myself. What I am opposed to are short sighted statements that presume ‘one size to fit all’ no matter what they be.