Wills vs. Trusts – What’s the Difference?

A will might not be enough. Do you know the difference between a will and a trust? Let’s talk about it. I’m Sarah Siedentopf. I’m an Estate Planning Attorney in Atlanta, Georgia.

Wills have to go through probate. This is the biggest and first thing. So if you are trying to avoid probate, which can be a long and costly emotionally hassling process, so if you’re trying to avoid probate, a will is not enough. Wills go through probate. For that, we would need a trust. Trusts allow you not only to avoid probate, but to decide who is in charge of things.

To give very specific instructions about how assets can be used, how things can be handled, how we’re holding things for minor children or for older children who might need a little more supervision or for grandchildren, for other people. Maybe we want assets to be available to our spouse during their lifetime, but not fully given to them so that anything left over can go to our kids. This can be especially important if there’s a blended family situation where of course you want to take care of your spouse, but you also wanna make sure that your kids don’t get cut out. This is something that a will struggles with because we’re going through probate.

We can put trusts inside a will, but they still have to go through probate. A much longer, more difficult process. And of course, there are other things that a will doesn’t do. It doesn’t designate a standby guardian for your children. That’s a designation of standby guardian. It doesn’t allow for legal and financial decision making during your lifetime. That’s a durable financial power of attorney. It doesn’t allow for medical decision making.

That’s an advance directive for healthcare. So there are many different things that you might want and a will can do some of them, but it can’t do all of them. So even when we do planning with a trust, which I do love trusts, I advise clients to have trusts a whole lot of the time. But even when we do have a trust, we have a will involved just in case there’s something that didn’t get put into the trust during your lifetime. But a will is not enough on its own. It can’t do everything. If you wanna talk about wills or potentially trusts or any of the other things I’ve mentioned, making sure that you and your loved ones are safe and protected, please give me a call. I would love to talk.