Why a Trust
What a revocable living trust does for you
A revocable living trust is a container you create and control. You move your home, your accounts, and your personal property into it, you serve as your own trustee, and nothing about your day-to-day life changes. What changes is what happens when you become incapacitated or die: the successor trustee you chose steps in without a court order, and the property passes to the people you named without probate in Nassau County Surrogate's Court.
For most Long Island families that is the point. Probate in New York is public, slow, and expensive, and a will alone does not avoid it. A funded trust does, and it does so quietly.
Probate avoidance
Assets titled in the trust pass under its terms, not through the court. No letters, no citation to relatives, no months of waiting to sell the house.
Incapacity planning
If you cannot manage your affairs, your successor trustee manages the trust property for you. No guardianship proceeding, no frozen accounts.
Privacy and control
The trust is not filed anywhere. You decide who inherits, when, and on what terms, including holding a child's share until an age you choose.
What Is Included
A complete plan, not just a trust
A trust only works alongside the documents that cover everything else. Every trust plan I prepare includes the pour-over will that catches anything left outside the trust, a durable power of attorney, a health care proxy, a living will, a HIPAA authorization, and a disposition of remains directive. For a married couple I draft either a joint trust or two individual trusts, depending on how you want property to pass at the first death.
Your home comes with it. I prepare and record the deed transferring your residence to the trust as part of the plan, so the single most important asset is funded on signing day rather than left for later.
Signing happens at my office. Witnesses and a notary are provided, every document is executed properly under New York law, and you leave with originals and a plain-English overview your family can follow.
Funding
The part most trusts get wrong
An unfunded trust is an expensive piece of paper. After signing, bank and investment accounts are either retitled to the trust or given transfer-on-death designations naming it, retirement accounts keep your spouse as primary beneficiary with the trust as contingent, and life insurance is reviewed so it lands where you intended. I give you the exact wording each institution needs and a checklist to work through, and I answer the questions that come up while you do it.
Questions
Common questions about living trusts in New York
Does a revocable living trust avoid probate in New York?
Yes, for the assets that are actually titled in the trust or paid to it by beneficiary designation. Anything left in your own name still goes through Surrogate's Court, which is why funding the trust is half the work.
Do I lose control of my property if I put it in a trust?
No. You are the trustee of your own revocable trust, you keep full use of everything, and you can amend or revoke the trust at any time by a signed, acknowledged writing. It uses your Social Security number and files no separate tax return during your life.
Should my home in Nassau County go into the trust?
Usually yes. I prepare and record the deed to the trust with the plan, and the transfer does not trigger transfer tax or disturb your STAR exemption when done correctly. A house left outside the trust is the most common reason a family ends up in probate anyway.
What does a revocable living trust cost?
I quote a flat fee at the first consultation, based on whether the plan is for one person or a couple and whether a deed is included. The fee covers the trust, a pour-over will, power of attorney, health care proxy, living will, HIPAA authorization, and a signing at my office with witnesses and notary provided.
Can a trust follow Islamic inheritance rules?
Yes. For families who want it, I draft the distribution provisions to follow fara'id shares and address the New York elective share so the plan holds up. Married couples who want separate faith-based dispositions generally use two individual trusts rather than one joint trust.
Serving Oceanside, Rockville Centre, Long Beach, Valley Stream, Hempstead, Garden City, and families throughout Nassau County, Suffolk County, and the five boroughs, in person or by Zoom. Also admitted in Texas.
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