Estate Planning

1. Millions of trusts are established each year, and 90% do not properly provide for surviving spouses and children.

Citation: Croke, F. (2000, March). Trust Busters. Financial Planning, 59-64.

2. “70 percent of estates become unglued after the estate transitions.”

Citation: Preisser, V. & Williams, R. (2010, June). The Future of Estate Planning. Trust and Estates.

3. In April 2002, the American Bar published a survey that claimed trust and estate planning attorneys sustain malpractice claims two times as often as criminal defense attorneys. The former head of a committee on estate malpractice for the American Bar Association, Dominic Campisi, said,

“There are lots of attorneys that steal from estates.” Source: McMenamin, B. (2001, May 28). Forbes magazine. 195.

4. An attorney’s asymmetric information over his/her clients can be a dangerous aspect of a revocable living trust. “Recipients of expert services are not themselves adequately knowledgeable to solve the problem or to assess the service received and are therefore unable to protect themselves against incompetence, carelessness, and exploitation” (Sharma, 1997, p. 764). This reality means the client will not necessarily understand the trust language and the grantor’s intent may or may not be properly represented. Source: Sharma, A. (1997). Professional as agent: Knowledge asymmetry in agency exchange. Academy of Management review, 22(3), 758-798.

We have a combined 80 years of real-world revocable living trust experience and 3 years of academic and legal research for a doctoral dissertation on trust documents. We can help our clients craft their intent in unambiguous language to convey to an attorney, so that our clients may avoid having their trust document fall into the 90% of trust documents that do not properly provide for surviving spouses and children or end up in court. We are not attorneys, and we do not give legal advice. We do give help on the financial planning aspect of estate planning. We do not charge our clients for this service. This service is offered to protect client assets.

Power of Attorney

An important issue surfaced during the academic and legal research into why trust documents end up in court. A "Power of Attorney” (POA), by itself, according to Florida statute, is not allowed to change a Trust document. However, we have seen many attorneys create POA’s that provide someone other than yourself to amend, alter, change beneficiaries, or even revoke your trust without your knowledge. If such language exists in your POA and in your Revocable Living Trust, then that POA agent can easily amend, alter, change your beneficiaries and even revoke your Trust.

This can easily cause your Trust to be litigated against in court. Florida Statutes § 709.2202 and § 736.0602 together govern and restrict an agent's ability to amend or revoke a principal's trust using a power of attorney.

Disclosure: The dissertation examined three sources of information: academic literature, Florida court cases, and attorney business websites. Keywords or phrases used in this research included “undue influence,” “grantor/trustee behavior,” “competency,” “trust amendments,” “trust revocations,” and “trust language.”

Wells Investments, Inc. | 863-294-3361

Securities offered through Valor Financial Securities LLC, Member FINRA and SIPC.

Investment advisory services are offered through Wells Investments, Inc., a state of Florida registered investment advisor. Registration with any state securities authority or the United States Securities and Exchange Commission does not imply a certain level of skill or training.

The information set forth herein on this website was obtained from sources which we believe to be reliable, but we do not guarantee its accuracy. Neither the information nor any opinion expressed constitutes a solicitation by us of the purchase or sale of any securities or commodities, or investment strategy.

Investing involves risk. There is always the potential to lose money when you invest in securities. Asset allocation, diversification and rebalancing do not ensure a profit or protect against loss in declining prices, and declining or rising markets.

Wells Investments, Inc., and its investment advisor representatives, companies under common ownership, and their financial advisors/representatives do not provide legal, tax or accounting advice. You should consult your legal and/or tax advisors before making any financial decision.

Guarantees on insurance products are backed by the claims-paying ability of the insurance company.

Wells Investments, Inc.

Wells Investments, Inc.

"Why Revocable Living Trusts Go to Court." A Doctorate Dissertation by Dr. Jim Wells.

Academic and Legal Trust Dissertation Research with Citations.

Power of Attorney

Wells Investments, Inc. | 863-294-3361