Most people are familiar with a Last Will and Testament that dictates how your assets are to be passed down to your loved ones after your death. Yet few people are familiar with a “Pour-Over Will,” which is a legal tool that your Tampa estate planning lawyer may use if your plan also includes a living trust.
Essentially, a Pour-Over Will directs that any assets that are not in the name of the trust at the time of your passing will be “poured over” into the trust when you are gone. This helps to ensure that even if there was an oversight or a mistake, all of the assets will eventually make their way into the trust that was created and distributed privately according to the trust’s guidelines.
Here’s an example: say at the time of your death, you owned a piece of property that you forgot to transfer to your Revocable Living Trust. This oversight would cause the property to fall “outside” of your trust and it would not receive the protections that the Trust provides. However, because you had a Pour-Over Will, your asset would still get directed back into your Revocable Living Trust anyway.
As mentioned above, one of the greatest advantages of using a Pour-Over Will is that it does not have to go into detail on how the estate assets will be distributed. Instead, it just states that the assets should go into the Revocable Living Trust. This is an important aspect of estate planning, especially for anyone concerned about privacy, since personal affairs can be made public through the probate process.
However, just like a regular Last Will and Testament, the Pour-Over Will is subject to Florida probate proceedings. These proceedings can be long and complex, however the length and complexity depends on the amount of assets that were held outside of the Revocable Living Trust. The Trust continue to exist for as long as the estate is in probate, which means Trustees’ fiduciary responsibilities may extend for longer than they thought. A basic probate proceeding can last anywhere from a few months to a year.
If you have any questions about the difference between a basic Last Will and Testament and a Pour-Over Will, or if you’d like to review your existing estate plan to ensure it still fits your situation, please contact us at (813) 438-8503 to set up a consultation.