How does a living trust actually work in Arizona? Well, there’s kind of three big stages if you think about how it’s going to work.
First stage is putting it all together. You’ve got to have it done. You’ve got to create the documents, get everything funded in there, and you’ve got to have that stuff done. That’s the first stage, and that’s going to take you making the decision to get started. You put it together, get all your finances in order, and actually organize all that stuff.
The next stage is if there’s a medical emergency. There’s some type of, we call this stage – incapacity. Nobody wants to think about that, but that’s where you need help. Somebody needs help, and maybe you’re thinking about your parents, right? Do they need help?
Whoever you picked – it’s your spouse, or maybe it’s your child, steps in and starts helping you. They manage the bills, take care of payments, investments, tax returns, all that stuff, medical appointments, helping you with that stuff too. That is stage two.
Then the last stage is really where after we pass away, we don’t want to even think about that, right? That’s what this whole thing is for, is to make that stage as organized as possible for your family. Again, you pick who it is, maybe it’s a spouse, it’s a child, maybe it’s a professional. They are in charge of making sure everything’s gathered, everything’s inventoried, all the bills are paid, and taxes are paid.
Then they make sure the distributions happen as smoothly and as quickly as possible without everything being filed in the court, on the public record, and all the creditors and all the people crawling out of the woodwork, making that stage as simple as possible. Those are really how we look at it and how I see it operate. You know, for the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of families that we’ve seen go through these stages.
Now, a regular living trust in that first stage and in that second stage, will not do two things. It will not give you protection from creditors, and it will not protect your money from nursing homes. You just need to know in those two stages, it doesn’t do that in a typical living trust.
You need something bigger, better than a regular living trust. Now, after you pass away, you can have some things in your living trust that say, “It goes to my kids, my spouse. I’m giving it to them” – in a way that their creditors can’t get it, they can’t lose it in bankruptcy, they can’t lose it in a divorce. You can give it to them with that protection, but a regular living trust in those first two stages doesn’t give you that protection.
So I hear a lot of misconceptions and misunderstandings about that. You definitely want to know if you want protection from creditors and if you want protection from nursing homes, and not just basic standard living trust.
Summary
A living trust in Arizona operates in three stages. The first stage involves creating the trust, organizing finances, and funding it. In the second stage, during a medical emergency or incapacity, a chosen individual manages bills, investments, and medical appointments. The final stage occurs after the trust creator’s passing, ensuring an organized distribution of assets to beneficiaries and avoiding court involvement. However, a standard living trust doesn’t protect assets from creditors or nursing homes in the first two stages.
