Estate Planning for Arizona Families

FOUR PEAKS PLANNING INC. is dedicated to providing quality revocable living trust estate plans affordable to most Arizona families.

Families may find revocable living trusts help prepare for a variety of situations that result in life. Common uses include:

Ensuring assets are manageable during an incapacitation
Maintaining a residence for dependents
Reducing the time and potential costs to transfer an estate
Distributing inheritances to younger beneficiaries in stages rather than lump sums

Our estate planners and attorneys will help you identify specific goals and prepare the proper legal documents. Common estate planning documents include a last will & testament, medical and financial powers of attorney for incapacitations, and a living will directing the use of life support.

We offer a comprehensive package with the above documents including a deed to transfer one Arizona real estate property to your living trust, for $750.

We have been providing custom attorney-prepared estate plans since 2003. As mentioned, our focus is estate planning, we do not sell insurance or financial products. We'll help your agents and advisors title assets properly, should you provide their information.

What is a revocable living trust?

"Revocable" means the creators of the trust can change or amend language at any time. "Living" means the trust was set up during a person's lifetime.

A living trust can be pictured as a box.

After the trust is signed, you may transfer legal title of assets from your name to your trust's name.

By naming yourself as Trustor and Trustee of the trust, you alone will control the trust. A spouse or life partner can be named as a Co-Trustor or Co-Trustee.

The trust can continue holding assets and carrying out tasks long after you have gone.

Successor Trustees, pre-appointed by you, manage and distribute assets according to the trust's instructions.

Once all tasks are completed and assets distributed, the trust comes to an end.

Common estate planning goals

Guardians for Children. Without a Will appointing guardians, children will be awarded to the state of Arizona, who will name their guardians. A last will & testament is essential for parents wanting input on their children's guardians. A trust can help separate the responsibilities of guardians and those managing the children's money.

Controlling Distributions. Young beneficiaries may make ill-advised decisions when receiving lump sums of money from life insurance or proceeds from the sale of a house. A living trust can hold money until a predetermined age or make partial distributions as beneficiaries reach certain ages. Early distributions for reasonable education, health, maintenance and support requests can be approved by the Successor Trustees you appoint.

Example:

Assisting Blended Families. If the deceased spouse owns the primary residence, a trust may allow the surviving spouse to continue living in the home before being distributed to the deceased spouse's heirs.

Special Needs Provisions. Those receiving disibility income may have issues if they receive an inheritance. Inheritances for such a person can legally be held in a trust until needed to prevent a disruption of disability income.

Avoiding Probate. Some assets already avoid probate: life insurance, retirement accounts and other assets listing living beneficiaries. In Arizona $75,000 of real estate or $50,000 of other assets combined can trigger probate. Actual costs associated with probate courts are relatively inexpensive. But the process, according to studies in Arizona, can delay transfer of the estate by 6 to 18 months. In addition, costs can increase quickly if legal help is needed or the estate is contested.

No Contest Clauses. Contested last will & testaments can freeze an estate, unlike living trusts containing No Contest Clauses which revoke inheritances from people contesting your estate.

Minimizing Taxes. Unless your estate is over the estate tax limit (currently $3.5 Million), your estate will likely have no estate taxes due. Married couples can double their estate tax exemption using features of a living trust. Most Arizona resident's tax issues will be limited to having a final tax return prepared. Living trusts do not affect your affect income taxes.

Providing for Pets. Pet food and vet visits can be costly. A trust can set aside a sum of $5,000 - $10,000 to reimburse the person who is kindly taken care of your pets. Any amounts left after your pets have passed can be returned to the estate or given to a charity.

Charitable Donations. Help a favorite cause. When you include a favorite charity as a primary beneficiary, Four Peaks Planning, Inc. will match your percentage amount in dollars.

What revocable living trusts don't do

Living trusts do not take away your control of assets. By naming yourself Trustor and Trustee, you maintain control.
While you are living, your living trust does not protect your assets from lawsuits. Talk to legal or tax advisors about options, such as placing rental properties or businesses into LLC's or corporations. Talk to your insurance advisor about an appropriate umbrella policy.
They do not prevent Medicaid spend down. Talk to an insurance or financial advisor about Long Term Care policies to protect your assets. Some coverage is often better than no coverage when full coverage eppears expensive.

Free Planning Guides

Start on your own at your pace. The tools below can prepare you with questions when meeting with an attorney or estate planner.

Print our Arizona Estate Pre-Planning Kit.
Includes a living trust vs will chart and worksheets.

Use our Online pre-planning tool
No need to enter personal information - just enter a first name.
Your answers will be presented in an easy to review manner.

Preparing your documents

Four Peaks Planning, Inc. can help you generate your estate plan in two meetings generally within two to four weeks. These meetings can take place at an office or in your home.

The first meeting last about an hour and a half with an estate planner, who will answer questions, review a sample trust and, if you are ready, collect information.

We do not collect birthdates, social security numbers nor lists of your assets. Only legal names of people being named are needed.

The attorney will call shortly after to review your estate plan, answer questions and provide legal advice. When the attorney finishes your living trust, a second meeting is scheduled to review, sign and notarize your documents.

Transfering assets to the living trust

This step is crucial and the most overlooked.

Signing legal documents from an attorney does not transfer all your assets to your living trust. A little legwork is needed on your part.

Real estate New deeds must be prepared to transfer property to your living trust. We prepare deeds for Arizona properties with your estate plan. Out of state deeds can be prepared by a title insurance company in the county of your property.

Bank accounts Take all estate planning documents to the bank so they record and copy appropriate information for their records. Your account numbers should not change and your checks can keep your name on them. Bank statements will now reflect the trust's name instead of your name as the owner.

Investments Non-qualified money (meaning after-tax money that you invest and pay annual capital gains taxes) may be transferred into your trust in the same manner as transferring bank accounts.

Personal property without titles Living trusts typically have one page assigning all present and future non-titled assets to the trust, including but not limited to jewelry, art, furniture, electronics, firearms, etc. You will not need to list out each item unless you want to specify a beneficiary.

Clients should contact us anytime they have questions or need assistance.

Some assets stay outside the living trust

Retirement accounts IRA's, 401(k)'s and other tax-deferred assets remain outside the living trust. Transferring them to the trust can cause a taxable event. Your financial advisor would likely stop you before you could accidentally make the change. There are additional tax advantages if beneficiaries are listed on the account rather than listing a trust as the beneficiary.

Life insurance Ownership of the policy is not changed from the person to the living trust. Instead, the living trust can be named the backup beneficiary of policies. If your trust has age-dependent distribution clauses, young beneficiaries are prevented from spending the insurance policy's payout until a more mature age is reached.

Both retirement accounts and life insurance avoid probate when accounts and policies have living beneficiaries listed.

Four Peaks Planning, Inc. as your estate planner

Our attorneys Thomas H. Leavell and Jonathan R. Muntz are our primary estate planning attorneys in Arizona and may be viewed on the Arizona State Bar website.

Are there additional costs or fees? There are no additional costs or attorney fees from us for the above planning package. However, if you require additional Arizona deeds, we can prepare and record them for $20. For non-Arizona deeds, we recommend you find someone in that state to prepare your deeds. Department of Motor Vehicle retitling fees are typically less than $15 per vehicle. Amendments for living trusts average $50-$100.

For estate plans without a living trust, we provide packages with wills and powers of attorney for $500.

Why are we so affordable? Our marketing is limited to this website and word of mouth. The majority of our business is referred and because most clients prefer meeting at their home, minimal office space is required. We believe in keeping your estate a little bigger rather than matching prices to other estate planners.

If you have questions or would like to schedule an appointment, contact us below or call (480) 229-6220