Establish a Living Trust

If you are married and especially if you have kids, consider establishing a living trust. You are the trustee as long as you are alive and your spouse becomes the trustee if you pass away. If both you and your spouse pass away at the same time (perhaps in an unfortunate accident), you designate who the trustee will be. The whole purpose of this is to avoid having all your assets go through probate upon your death. The trust is the owner of the assets and they can then be given out to your designated beneficiaries upon your death. Probate is a long and costly process that should be avoided when possible.

You will probably want to pay a lawyer to get everything set up for you and he or she can also assist with the transfer of any real property (real estate) into the trust. It is then up to you to move all of your bank and investment accounts into the name of the trust. This might seem like a hassle, or even strange, to have checks written with the name of your trust on them rather than your name, but it will be worth it.