The importance of transferring assets to a trust

Estate & Tax Attorney, Sonja Panajotovic, shares advice on the importance of transferring assets to a trust in order to avoid probate
The Importance Of Transferring Assets To A Trust
KidsInTheHouse the Ultimate Parenting Resource
Kids in the House Tour

The importance of transferring assets to a trust

Comment
45
Like
45
Transcription: 
Assets that are not transferred into a trust, can be treated like assets that are disposed of by will. If the assets are significant enough, in California, for example, if the assets are over $100,000, those assets have to be probated. The estate can be worth millions of dollars, but if, for example, there are two bank accounts that were never transferred into the trust, those accounts have to be probated. That is why it is so important that the assets actually get transferred to the trust. If they are not, it is exactly the same as if you hadn't done anything at all.

Estate & Tax Attorney, Sonja Panajotovic, shares advice on the importance of transferring assets to a trust in order to avoid probate

Transcript

Expert Bio

More from Expert

Sonja Panajotovic

Estate & Tax Attorney

In 1992, Ms. Panajotovic graduated from University of Colorado, Boulder with a bachelor's degree in Business Administration/Finance and with multiple honors as a scholar/athlete (tennis) and honored as Academic All Big Eight, and Scholar Athlete of the year. She earned her law degree from the Southwestern University School of Law and graduated Cum Laude, was an Associate Editor for the Law Review, and on the Dean’s List, and began her legal career as a law clerk for Magistrate Judge Margaret A. Nagle, United States District Court, Los Angeles, and as an associate at the prestigious law firm of Brobeck Phleger & Harrison LLP.

Sonja Panajotovic’s estate planning services include the preparation of documents ranging from simple wills to advanced health care directives, asset transfers and living trusts. She also counsels many of her clients on the various types of trusts such as the marital deduction trust, special needs trusts, Q-TIP trusts, and charitable remainder trusts and helps her clients coordinate their trusts with their overall estate planning needs.

 Her probate and estate practice is also designed to provide full legal services to personal representatives of decedent's estates, trustees, and guardians/conservators for minors or incapacitated adults, including all proceedings in the probate court. She aids her clients with estate and trust administration to efficiently transfer assets from decedent's trusts or estates to intended beneficiaries at death.

Guardianship, Wills and Trusts
More Parenting Videos from Sonja Panajotovic >
Enter your email to
download & subscribe
to our newsletter