What Is a Revocable Living Trust?
A revocable living trust is an estate planning tool that allows you to place assets in a trust while maintaining control over them during your lifetime. Depending on the terms of the trust, you can change its provisions, add or remove property, change beneficiaries, or revoke the trust.
Creating a revocable living trust in Illinois can help you organize how you want someone to manage your property during your lifetime and distribute it after your death. Assets properly transferred into the trust may also pass outside the probate process.
At Metz & Jones LLC, we provide estate planning services’ for LGBTQ+ individuals, couples, and families throughout Chicago, Cook County, and Illinois. For more than 40 years, our women-owned law firm has proudly served the LGBTQ+ community with compassionate and affirming legal guidance.
If you are considering an Illinois revocable living trust, our attorneys can help you understand how this planning tool may fit into your broader estate plan. Contact Metz & Jones LLC at (773) 878-4480 to schedule a consultation.
Why Work With a Revocable Living Trust Attorney in Chicago?
Creating a trust involves more than preparing a document. The terms must reflect your intentions, comply with Illinois law, and coordinate with the other parts of your estate plan.
A revocable living trust attorney can help you:
- Determine whether a revocable trust fits your estate planning goals
- Draft clear trust provisions
- Select a trustee and successor trustee
- Name beneficiaries
- Coordinate the trust with your will and powers of attorney
- Review which assets should be transferred into the trust
- Update the trust after significant changes in your life or finances
Funding the trust is also an important part of the process. A trust generally controls only the assets you properly transfer or assign to it. Creating the document without addressing asset ownership can leave parts of an estate outside the intended trust plan.
Our attorneys provide revocable trust services tailored to each client’s circumstances. We take the time to understand your family, assets, relationships, and long-term priorities before preparing your documents.
What Is a Living Trust?
A living trust is a legal arrangement created during your lifetime. The person creating the trust, often called the settlor or grantor, transfers property into the trust and establishes instructions for its management.
A trustee manages the property according to those instructions for the benefit of the people or organizations named as beneficiaries. Depending on how you structure the trust, you may serve as the initial trustee and continue managing trust property during your lifetime.
A living trust can also name a successor trustee. This person can assume responsibility for trust property under circumstances described in the trust, including after your death.
Living trusts generally fall into two broad categories: revocable and irrevocable.
What Is the Difference Between a Revocable and Irrevocable Trust?
The primary difference involves the amount of control the person creating the trust retains.
With a revocable trust, the trust document can give you authority to amend or revoke the arrangement during your lifetime. This flexibility can make it useful when your relationships, finances, property, or estate planning priorities change.
An irrevocable trust generally involves giving up significantly more control over property placed in the trust. Changing or ending an irrevocable trust can involve different legal requirements.
The right structure depends on your circumstances and planning goals. A revocable living trust lawyer can explain these distinctions and help you evaluate the appropriate options for your estate.
Example of a Revocable Living Trust
Consider parents who establish a revocable trust and initially plan for part of their property to support their child’s education. Years later, their financial circumstances or their child’s plans change.
If the trust terms allow amendments, the parents may revise the document during their lifetimes to reflect their updated intentions. This flexibility is one reason some Illinois families include revocable trusts in their estate plans.
Key Aspects of a Revocable Living Trust
A revocable living trust can serve several functions within an estate plan.
You Can Maintain Control During Your Lifetime
A properly structured revocable trust can allow you to continue directing trust property while you have the legal capacity and authority described in the trust document.
You may also amend the trust when circumstances change. Marriage, divorce, adoption, the death of a beneficiary, a new home, or significant financial changes may all create reasons to review your estate plan.
Properly Funded Trust Assets Can Avoid Probate
One common reason people create revocable living trusts is probate planning.
Assets that you properly transfer into the trust during your lifetime generally pass according to the trust rather than through probate. However, assets left outside the trust may still require probate or pass according to another beneficiary designation or ownership arrangement.
This makes proper trust funding an important part of the planning process.
A Successor Trustee Can Provide Continuity
A revocable living trust can name someone to serve as successor trustee if you can no longer manage trust property or after your death.
Clear instructions can help the successor trustee understand how you want the property managed and distributed. This structure can provide continuity without requiring beneficiaries to immediately manage each asset themselves.
You Can Establish Instructions for Beneficiaries
A trust can provide more detailed instructions than simply naming who should receive property. Depending on your goals, you can establish when and how beneficiaries receive trust assets.
This may be useful for parents, couples, people with multiple beneficiaries, and individuals who want greater structure around future distributions.
Benefits of a Revocable Living Trust
A revocable living trust can offer several advantages depending on your estate plan.
Greater Privacy
A will admitted to probate generally becomes part of a court proceeding. Property transferred through a revocable trust can often pass without the same probate administration, providing greater privacy for the trust and its beneficiaries.
Probate Planning
Avoiding probate for properly funded trust assets may reduce some of the court involvement associated with administering an estate. It can also give the successor trustee a clearer framework for managing trust property after death.
Flexibility
Because the trust is revocable, you may retain the ability to revise its terms when life changes. This flexibility allows an estate plan to evolve with your family and financial circumstances.
Planning for Incapacity
A trust can establish who will manage trust property if you become unable to handle those responsibilities yourself. This can work alongside powers of attorney and other estate planning documents.
Clear Asset Distribution Instructions
A revocable trust lets you identify beneficiaries and establish instructions for distributing trust property after your death. This can help reduce uncertainty about your intentions.
What Assets Can You Place in a Revocable Living Trust?
Many types of property may become part of a revocable trust, depending on ownership requirements and your overall estate plan.
Common examples include:
- Real estate
- Bank accounts
- Investment accounts
- Business interests
- Certain personal property
Not every asset should necessarily pass through a trust. Retirement accounts, life insurance policies, and other assets with beneficiary designations require careful coordination with the rest of the estate plan.
Our attorneys can review your assets and explain how ownership and beneficiary designations may interact with your trust.
Does a Revocable Living Trust Reduce Estate Taxes?
Transferring property into a revocable living trust does not automatically provide an estate tax advantage. During the settlor’s lifetime, federal tax law generally treats a revocable living trust as a grantor trust.
Tax planning depends on factors such as the value and type of assets, family circumstances, and applicable state and federal law.
When tax concerns form part of your estate planning goals, your trust should coordinate with the broader financial and legal plan rather than serve as a stand-alone tax strategy.
Does a Revocable Trust Protect Assets From Creditors?
A revocable living trust generally does not shield your property from your own creditors during your lifetime. Because you retain control over a revocable trust, Illinois law generally allows creditors to reach trust property to the same extent they could reach property you owned directly, subject to applicable exemptions.
This distinction is important when deciding what you want a trust to accomplish. Probate planning, continuity of management, and distribution instructions are different goals from creditor protection.
Revocable Living Trusts for LGBTQ+ Individuals and Families
Estate planning can provide valuable clarity for LGBTQ+ individuals, same-sex couples, transgender clients, parents, and chosen families.
A thoughtfully prepared trust can clearly identify:
- Who should manage your trust property
- Which people or organizations you want to name as beneficiaries
- How you want assets distributed
- Who should assume responsibility if you can no longer manage trust property
- How your trust should coordinate with your broader estate plan
At Metz & Jones LLC, we understand that every family and relationship looks different. Our attorneys provide a welcoming environment where clients can discuss their family structure, relationships, financial priorities, and future plans openly.
We prepare estate planning documents that reflect the client’s intentions while addressing applicable Illinois law.
When Should You Review a Revocable Living Trust?
Creating a trust is not necessarily a one-time task. Your estate plan should continue to reflect your circumstances.
Consider reviewing your trust after major events such as:
- Marriage or entry into a civil union
- Divorce or dissolution
- Birth or adoption of a child
- Death of a beneficiary or trustee
- Purchase or sale of real estate
- Significant changes in finances
- Changes in relationships with beneficiaries
- Moving to another state
- Changes in applicable law
Even without a major life event, periodic reviews can help confirm that the trust still reflects your wishes and coordinates with your other estate planning documents.
Contact Our Lawyers for Revocable Trust Services in IL
Metz & Jones LLC has served the LGBTQ+ community in Chicago and Illinois for more than four decades. Our estate planning attorneys help clients create and revise trusts, wills, powers of attorney, and related documents with careful attention to their individual circumstances.
If you are considering a revocable trust or want to review an existing one, speak with our legal team. Call (773) 878-4480 or contact Metz & Jones LLC online to schedule a consultation.
Serving the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Community and Friends in Chicago, Cook County, and Across Illinois.