Opinion on Trusts

[Dean]

I agree with LT transfers. I also have an attorney I've used in the past for HHI who will do it for around the same price if one has bulk for the island.

 

[dioxide45]

If you are setting up a legal trust, I would utilize an insured closing service. I am not sure that LT fits that criteria. This is your life estate planning, not something to be penny wise and a pound foolish on. Best to make sure everything is covered. We are only talking a few hundred dollar difference here per week.

 

[csodjd]

You still would want a will with the trust. The will designates who gets property upon your death. The trust just allows that property to be transferred to the beneficiaries more easily. Whether in a trust or not, the beneficiary can still decline the inheritance.

Not exactly. The purpose of the will is to transfer into the trust anything that got left out. It is called a "pour over will" commonly. The purpose of the trust is to avoid the process of probate upon death. But the trust document itself will typically contain all the provisions regarding distribution of assets. What makes a trust a useful tool and allows it to avoid probate is that you own things, not yourself, but in your capacity as trustee of the trust, and the trustee can be changed without a court being involved (i.e., probate).

The goal is to avoid probate. States have dollar amounts that if your "estate" is worth less than that dollar amount you don't need probate. In California I believe it is $150,000. So if your NON-trust assets stay below that, your heirs can avoid dealing with the time and costs of probate. Your will SHOULD give everything to the trust so that you only have to deal with one document for purposes of distribution. The trust will designate the trustee and instruct the trustee on what they are to do with the assets. Sometimes that does not mean distribute... it may mean care for, or provide money for, certain people for certain things. (That's where "trust baby" and those things come from. The trustee is holding a bunch of money for a child of the now deceased person with instructions to use it for health, comfort, education, etc., but not to just give the person all the money.)

I own all my timeshares as "trustee" of my trust. So too my house, my brokerage and checking accounts, etc. If I die, my wife is the cotrustee and she seamlessly has all my share of the assets by doing nothing more than signing a document saying she is now sole trustee per the terms of the trust. None of those assets are frozen (if you have a checking account with your name alone on it, when you die it is immediately frozen if its not "in trust").

Anyone with an estate worth more than a couple hundred thousand dollars should seek help of a wills/trusts/estate attorney.

 

[aland0524]

Not exactly. The purpose of the will is to transfer into the trust anything that got left out. It is called a "pour over will" commonly. The purpose of the trust is to avoid the process of probate upon death. But the trust document itself will typically contain all the provisions regarding distribution of assets. What makes a trust a useful tool and allows it to avoid probate is that you own things, not yourself, but in your capacity as trustee of the trust, and the trustee can be changed without a court being involved (i.e., probate).

The goal is to avoid probate. States have dollar amounts that if your "estate" is worth less than that dollar amount you don't need probate. In California I believe it is $150,000. So if your NON-trust assets stay below that, your heirs can avoid dealing with the time and costs of probate. Your will SHOULD give everything to the trust so that you only have to deal with one document for purposes of distribution. The trust will designate the trustee and instruct the trustee on what they are to do with the assets. Sometimes that does not mean distribute... it may mean care for, or provide money for, certain people for certain things. (That's where "trust baby" and those things come from. The trustee is holding a bunch of money for a child of the now deceased person with instructions to use it for health, comfort, education, etc., but not to just give the person all the money.)

I own all my timeshares as "trustee" of my trust. So too my house, my brokerage and checking accounts, etc. If I die, my wife is the cotrustee and she seamlessly has all my share of the assets by doing nothing more than signing a document saying she is now sole trustee per the terms of the trust. None of those assets are frozen (if you have a checking account with your name alone on it, when you die it is immediately frozen if its not "in trust").

Anyone with an estate worth more than a couple hundred thousand dollars should seek help of a wills/trusts/estate attorney.

Completely agree with csodjd and many others. Putting your assets in a trust is a comprehensive estate planning solution and your timeshare assets are just a minuscule part of the program (given these assets aren’t probably worth a lot nowadays). We have a Revocable Trust that we put our MOC, Waiohai and Nanea weeks into. You can Call owner services and they have a special group that can do these title transfers. I did it myself - no reason to hire anybody. You just need to send them the retitled property that’s in the trust’s name. This is done in Hawaii so maybe you have to pay somebody to do this but you can also call the county clerk and they’ll send you the needed forms and instructions. You’ll need to have stuff notarized but you can easily do the rest of this stuff yourself (even from mainland or elsewhere not in Hawaii) The only problem is that sometimes, the MVC system gets confused about who is who because the system, for some reason still has our old names and also the trust’s name on the villas. But a minor inconvenience.

 

[bogey21]

I avoided all this stuff by giving all my assets (except JTWROS Bank Accounts and my 2011 Mazda)) to my ex-wife and kids about 20 years ago. The risk is that they die first but honestly I don't care. Anything they didn't want we sold...

George

 

[csodjd]

Completely agree with csodjd and many others. Putting your assets in a trust is a comprehensive estate planning solution and your timeshare assets are just a minuscule part of the program (given these assets aren’t probably worth a lot nowadays). We have a Revocable Trust that we put our MOC, Waiohai and Nanea weeks into. You can Call owner services and they have a special group that can do these title transfers. I did it myself - no reason to hire anybody. You just need to send them the retitled property that’s in the trust’s name. This is done in Hawaii so maybe you have to pay somebody to do this but you can also call the county clerk and they’ll send you the needed forms and instructions. You’ll need to have stuff notarized but you can easily do the rest of this stuff yourself (even from mainland or elsewhere not in Hawaii) The only problem is that sometimes, the MVC system gets confused about who is who because the system, for some reason still has our old names and also the trust’s name on the villas. But a minor inconvenience.

The title change is not complicated. It typically goes from something like: John and Mary Smith to John and Mary Smith, co-trustees of the John and Mary Family Trust dated xx/xx/xxxx. Hawaii is very particular, however, so it has to be exactly right. So a title company will typically ask for a copy of the trust document to be sure middle names/initials, etc., all match correctly. I just closed escrow last week on a Hawaii condo purchase and they had to redo ALL the paperwork because the "co" was left off the signature lines the first time.

 

[drlee]

We were convinced that a trust would make things easier for our children and grandchildren. It was a fairly strightforward process, our estate attorney handled all of it except the $ required to Marriott for the transfer on the deeds. $25 per beneficial unit for points, about $40 for each week. They (Marriott) will assign a new account for the trust, and your ownweship linkage to Interval will follow. Everything transferred fine for those weeks enrolled, my one unerolled week was enrolled anyway (a mistake?). Anyway, once fees were paid, signatures notarized and transmitted, the family trust now has the entire portfolio. I can't tell you how much the laywer charged for this, as he did it as part of establishing a new will, our family trust, real estate transfers and so on. He did recommend not putting cars, boats, campers, personal property, or other incidental items in the trust. Entire process took about a month. The most confusing part for us was the transfer to a new MVCI account (in the trust's name) and making sure existing reservations (in old account) were not lost. He used an attorney in Fl for the points (only 4 beneficial units) and another in Hawaii. I never had contact with any of them. As to what these things will be worth in 10 or 20 years, there is the possibility of zero, but there is also the possibility of some value (4 weeks are in Maui), so the trust gives a lot of flexibility down the road. The trust can assign, give away or transfer any property. I do believe you can do it yourself, but I recommend against it. An attorney can do the legwork and busy-paperwork that is time consuming. It is pretty clear that property transfers in Hawaii require a local presence, better that a laywer figure that out.

 

[1Kflyerguy]

We also have a trust with most of our assets in the trust. Some of the banks were a pain, so i left those accounts as JTWROS. I did transfer my HGV timeshare into the trust. I forgot to title our MVC points into the trust when we purchased, and i keep meaning to move those over to the trust.

No idea what those will be worth when the time comes, but since that's a FL deed, don't want to have probate in multiple states if i can avoid it.

 

[vacationtime1]

We also have a trust with most of our assets in the trust. Some of the banks were a pain, so i left those accounts as JTWROS. I did transfer my HGV timeshare into the trust. I forgot to title our MVC points into the trust when we purchased, and i keep meaning to move those over to the trust.

No idea what those will be worth when the time comes, but since that's a FL deed, don't want to have probate in multiple states if i can avoid it.

^^^^^ Why timeshares should be owned by a trust (assuming they have any value).

 

[csodjd]

I do believe you can do it yourself, but I recommend against it. An attorney can do the legwork and busy-paperwork that is time consuming.

As an attorney myself, I can opine that you should not do it yourself, because if you screw up somehow, nobody will know until down the road, when you're not there to clarify or fix things, and you'll create the very problem for your kids or grandkids you were trying to avoid. I refer my clients to an estate attorney. Also, because there are lots of tax issues and consequences, and those change with the political winds at times, one of the things the estate attorneys are good at is keeping up and notifying their clients of changes that may impact them and require changing the estate plan.

 

[clifffaith]

I would use LT Transfers; they will charge a fraction of what a title company would charge.

But if your deeded weeks are enrolled, I would first have Marriott verify in writing that the transfer into the trust will not unenroll those weeks (it shouldn't be an issue, but you can never be too sure).

You will presumably be a named trustee, so you will have the right to make reservations. You will get communiques from Marriott addressed to "Mr. ..... Trust" or "Ms. ...... Trust".

We had multiple issues when our Marriott timeshare was in our trust and they could not find us except by last name "Trust". Told relatives who were meeting us at Hilton Head one time that we hadn't checked in yet when in fact we'd been there for several days.