Revocable Trust vs. Will in Wyoming

Wyoming's A Trust Jurisdiction

Wyoming Asset Protection Trust-Trust Attorney

Wyoming Wills Vs. RLTs

The main difference between a Revocable Trust and a Will in Wyoming is that a Revocable Trust does not subject your estate to the significant cost and expense of a probate, but a Will does.

Many people think that if they have a Will, they have planned enough, and do not need to go to the time and expense of further planning. However, once someone has obtained sufficient assets (which isn’t hard in this day and age), a Will may not be enough.

Suppose the gross value (note that it does not matter how encumbered the asset is) of assets not held in the form of ownership which provides a right of survivorship (i.e. joint tenancy, life insurance, and IRAs), and not held in a Living Trust, is greater than a certain dollar amount, which can vary over time and from state to state. In that case, those assets must be probated.

The fact that someone has a Will does not keep the estate from needing to be probated.

Probate requires court intervention and approval of many steps of the estate settlement and administration process. The process will take at least 6 months but could take years to complete. Probate provides statutory fees for attorneys and executors of the estate which are based upon the size of the estate. The statutory fees can range from 0.5% of the value of the estate for very large estate up to 4% for small estates.

1st $100,000 - 4% of gross value of estate	2nd $100,000 - 3% of gross value of estate
Next $800,000 - 2% of the gross value of estate	Next $9,000,000 - 1% of gross value of estate
Next $15,000,000 - 0.5% of gross value of estate

Additional Probate Considerations

If assets are held in forms of ownership which do not require probate, the estate can be settled and administered without court intervention and, depending on the size of the estate and type of assets held therein, can be administered in a matter of months. Also, in these situations the attorney’s fees usually are based on the amount of work performed to settle and administer the estate, not the size of the estate. This can be much less costly than if the estate needed to probate.

Apart from costs and time of administration, estate taxes also become a concern. Although a Living Trust does not provide any more tax protection than a Will for a single person, the Living Trust can provide a great tax advantage for married couples with larger estates, by, in essence, doubling the Unified Tax Credit available for a decedent’s estate. For more information about your situation and to establish your own Trust, we recommend consulting with an experienced Wyoming Estate Planning Attorney.

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