Category Archives: Wills & Trusts

Type of non-probate transfer usually used for bank accounts and other financial investments.

The transferring of property directly to the beneficiary at death without going the necessity of a probate court administration.

A legal document in which you state your wishes about the types of medical care you desire if you are unable to speak for yourself. This document may go by many other names, including health care directive, advance care directive or health care declaration.

Trust agreement whose provisions are in effect during the lifetime of the person who established the trust. Also called an “inter vivos trust.”

A life estate is a concept used in common law and statutory law to designate the ownership of land for the duration of a person’s life. The right to use or occupy real property for one’s life. An estate in real property that ends at death.

A relationship in the ownership of real property, which provides that each party owns an undivided interest in the entire parcel, with all joint owners having an undivided, non-exclusive right to the property.

Trust agreement which cannot be amended or revoked.

A legal term referring to a transfer or gift made during one’s lifetime, as opposed to a testamentary transfer which is a transfer or gift made upon death. An inter vivos trust is often used synonymously with the more common term living trust. Latin for between the living.

A person who is unable by reason of any physical or mental condition to receive and evaluate information or to communicate decisions to such an extent that he is unable to provide himself with food, clothing, shelter, safety, or other care such that physical injury, illness or disease is likely to occur.

Grantor trust is a term used in the Internal Revenue Code to describe any trust over which the grantor or settlor retains the power to control or direct the trust’s income or assets. All revocable trusts are, by definition, grantor trusts. If a trust is a grantor trust, then the grantor is treated as the owner of the assets, the trust is disregarded as a separate tax entity, and all income is taxed to the grantor rather than to the trust.