The Living Trust Advisor - 2nd Edition by Jeffrey L Condon (Hardcover)

Book Synopsis

The Living Trust Advisor is an expert guide for both advisors and their clients on the complex process of establishing, living with, and maintaining a living trust. Written by renowned family inheritance attorney Jeffrey L. Condon, this book discusses the various aspects of this important document, and shows you how to manage a seamless transfer of assets to various beneficiaries. This new second edition has been fully updated and revised to reflect the extensive changes to the Estate Tax Law that have taken place since the initial publication, giving you the most up-to-date information and guidance on preserving your wealth and helping your heirs avoid estate tax liability. You'll develop a vision for your trust before you ever meet with an attorney or other key players, and learn how to establish and maintain a trust that remains rock-solid for your lifetime and beyond.

As the living trust has replaced the will as the primary means of settling after-death estates, clear guidance and current legal information is of utmost importance for advisors and clients alike. This book is a valuable resource for every stage of planning and execution, helping you ensure that you provide for your beneficiaries the way you intend.

• Know what to think about before your first meeting with a lawyer
• Establish and manage your living trust to carry out your wishes
• Identify potential inheritance problems and build solutions into the trust
• Distribute assets to future generations, and protect them after the transfer

Dealing with complex financial and legal issues while facing our own mortality is a difficult task, but making these decisions is critical to the future outcome of your estate. The Living Trust Advisor expertly guides you through the process so you can be confident that your wishes will be carried out.

From the Back Cover

The last great lesson you leave to your family is the inheritance plan you make in your Living Trust.

Creating a Living Trust that effectively carries out your inheritance instructions requires more than just printing out "one-size-fits-all" forms, checking off a few boxes, and signing where instructed. You and your financial advisor have to know the real-world impact of the words you inject into the document. Otherwise, your family, and the assets you leave to them, may become victim to the Law of Unintended Consequences.

Fully revised and updated to reflect the most recent laws and best practices in the Inheritance Arena, this Second Edition skillfully shows you step-by-step how to create a Living Trust that easily and seamlessly transfers your lifetime of accumulations to your spouse, children, grandchildren, and other beneficiaries. While such a discussion can become a dry and complex "slog-fest," Jeffrey L. Condon's enthusiasm, humor, and easily understandable style leap from the pages to walk you through the process of obtaining the life-enhancing gift of a Living Trust that's right for you and your family. He shares with you, and your financial advisor, his three decades of hard-won wisdom on the human and monetary sides of inheritance planning through straightforward and easy-to-understand explanations that:

• Address the very important inheritance issues that you must consider before your first meeting with your Living Trust attorney.
• Spell out how to live with your Living Trust during your lifetime.
• Reveal how you can "die knowing" that your Living Trust's inheritance instructions will be faithfully and legally carried out to the letter.
• Guide your family away from "inheritance minefields" that can create conflict, division, and estrangement.
• Share valuable tips on ensuring that your Living Trust's assets will be protected after your passing for your children...and from your children's risks and problems.

Even with changing trends and evolving laws, the Living Trust will always be the main vehicle in America for the after-death transfer of your assets to your family. And you and your advisor can always rely on the latest edition of The Living Trust Advisor to explain everything you need to know about your Living Trust ... for your eternal peace of mind.

About the Author

JEFFREY L. CONDON, ESQ. has practiced in trust, estate, and probate law since 1987 at the law offices of Condon & Condon in Santa Monica, California. With his late father, Gerald M. Condon, he is the coauthor of Beyond the Grave: The Right Way and the Wrong Way of Leaving Money to Your Children (and Others), the bestselling inheritance planning book in American publishing history, which the Wall Street Journal called the "best estate planning book in America." When not tending to his clients' Living Trusts and inheritance matters, Jeffrey enjoys swimming 3,000 meters daily with Southern California Aquatics, dining with his lovely girlfriend, Kim, listening to '70s and '80s pop music, getting together with his lifelong friends, and finding opportunities to spend quality time with his grown children.