Wisconsin Trust Attorneys

How To Set Up a Trust in Wisconsin

1. Meet with your Attorney

   The process starts by discussing your estate planning goals and family dynamics with your attorney. Make sure to explain any unique situations that you want dealt with, such as disinheriting a family member or leaving a gift to a friend or charity. You should explain how and to whom you want your property distributed from the trust after your death. You should also select a trustworthy Trustee to serve after you are no longer able to, and perhaps a backup in case the first choice is unavailable. Make sure to describe all of the different types of property that you own to your attorney, such as real estate, a business, bank accounts, and investment properties. Your attorney will have to make sure your trust is drafted to appropriately deal with and distribute the various types of property you own, and must therefore be made aware of your general asset portfolio.

2. Attorney Drafts the Trust

   After your first meeting, our attorney will draft your trust according to your stated desires from the meeting. If your trust is complicated, the attorney may ask you to pre-review a draft before coming into the office to do the final review in person. However, this may not be the case if your trust is relatively straightforward and easier to explain.

3. Signing Conference

   Next, you will attend your signing conference. At this meeting, you will sit down with our attorney to review the trust with you to explain its core, important terms. Once you understand the trust and are ready to sign, the attorney will have you sign the original trust document and notarize it. There may or may not be witnesses involved, who may also sign your trust to give it additional legal strength. Afterward, the attorney will typically send you home with your original documents and retain copies at the office.

4. Funding the Trust

   After creating your trust, it is time to “fund” it by putting your assets into the trust’s name and/or ear-marking such assets to transfer to the trust after your death using transfer on death designations (“TOD”). Either method will work to avoid probate, whether you change your assets’ titles now or wait for their titles to transfer later upon your death with a TOD. However, failure to do either funding method might cause your estate to require probate. Your Pour-Over Will would ensure your property winds up under your trust’s ownership, albeit after sending it through the probate process first. Since one of the main purposes for creating a trust is to explicitly avoid probate, it is key to fund your trust by properly changing your properties’ titles and/or setting up TODs to your trust.