Should I have a Land Trust OR Transfer On Death Instrument (TODI)?

Well, here are the similaries; both documents allow property to pass property from one person to another without probate.  AND THATS IT!

1. The TODI must be recorded with the County Recorder of Deeds office before the owner passes, making the owners information public as well as the beneficiaries.  This is a major privacy concern and only a Land Trust can keep your personal information offline.  In the Land Trust,  the Trustee protects your privacy and will only disclose this information if required by law.
2.  The TODI is also only applies to residential properties.  A Land Trust can be used for all types of properties including, but not limited to, residential, commercial, investment and industrial.
3. In order to amend a TODI, the owner must follow a tedious process of re-drafting, and recording both a revocation of the previous TODI and a new TODI.  With a Land Trust, all you have to do it fill out a one page form and send it back to the title company.
4. In order to establish or revoke a TODI, Power of Attorney documents cannot be used.  With a Land Trust, a Power of Attorney can be use to establish, amend or revoke a trust.
5. A Land Trust Protects you from judgement liens, A TODI doesn’t protect you or your beneficiaries.

Land Trust is the way to go!

Chicago Estate Planning

Did you know that if you do not create your own estate plan, the state and IRS have created one for you?

Most people are completely unaware of this and their heirs are often surprised and disappointed at the consequences. Only through a carefully considered estate plan can you have complete control over who receives your legacy.

Proper estate planning is crucial for the protection of those you love.

We will work to ensure taxes do not consume too much of what you have accumulated over many years of hard work and that your financial legacy is passed on to your loved ones. Our goal is to ensure that your belongings are passed down to the people that you choose at the time you choose, and under the conditions that you choose – and not pursuant to the state’s plan.

Even if you have an existing estate plan, did you know that an incomplete or outdated plan could be worse than no plan at all? At the Ted London and Associates, we review many Chicago estate plans and often find their original objectives to be obsolete, and changed circumstances to be completely unaddressed. We will be happy to review yours.

A good Chicago estate plan is also a way of preserving your family’s legacy – protecting the assets you have left to your children or grandchildren from creditors, predators or, in some cases, from your children themselves. At the Morton Law Firm, we can create the proper type of plan that will protect your hard-earned assets from passing to anyone other than those you intended.

Why Plan Your Estate in Chicago

The knowledge that we will eventually die is one of the things that seems to distinguish humans from other living beings. At the same time, no one likes to dwell on the prospect of his or her own death. But if you postpone planning for your demise until it is too late, you run the risk that your intended beneficiaries — those you love the most — may not receive what you would want them to receive whether due to extra administration costs, unnecessary taxes or squabbling among your heirs.

This is why estate planning is so important, no matter how small your estate may be. It allows you, while you are still living, to ensure that your property will go to the people you want, in the way you want, and when you want. It permits you to save as much as possible on taxes, court costs and attorneys’ fees; and it affords the comfort that your loved ones can mourn your loss without being simultaneously burdened with unnecessary red tape and financial confusion.

All estate plans should include, at minimum, these important estate planning instruments: a durable power of attorney, a will, and a medical directive. The first is for managing your property during your life, in case you are ever unable to do so yourself. The second is for the management and distribution of your property after death. In addition, more and more, Americans also are using revocable (or “living”) trusts to avoid probate and to manage their estates both during their lives and after they’re gone.

“We as African Americans have the capacity to pass on more wealth than any previous generation—wealth needed to continue to finance the progress and empowerment of future generations. But this potential cannot be realized if we don’t collectively commit to estate planning. Merely buying enough life insurance to cover the costs of our burials may have been acceptable for our parents, but it’s not even close to good enough for our children and grandchildren.

How big a crisis is this? Nearly 70% of African Americans estate plan in place. Not only does this put our ability to transfer wealth to future generations at risk, it also comes at a tremendous cost. Without an estate plan, your assets fall subject to probate. According to studies, probate costs surviving families a collective $2 billion annually—including more than $1.5 billion in attorney fees. Dying intestate (passing away without a valid will) not only blocks the transfer of wealth; it can leave a crippling financial burden to your heirs.

Estate planning means future generations not having to start from scratch to launch their businesses, or to finance the growth of those we leave to them. It means lessening our children’s and grandchildren’s dependence on student loans. It means providing the resources necessary to support the institutions, including historically black colleges and universities, necessary for the continued progress of African Americans.

To achieve all of this and more requires us to establish an estate plan NO WILLS!—not tomorrow, or someday, but NOW! And once those are in place, it also means reviewing and updating these documents as necessary, as births, deaths, changes in marital status, and other life transitions take place.

Wealth building is not just about financing our lives; it’s about leaving a legacy for our children, and their children, to build upon. Our commitment to black financial empowerment requires us to put in place the tools and measures necessary for preserving and transferring our wealth, no matter how much—or how little—we believe we have, to future generations”.

– Earl G. Graves Sr. is the Founder and Publisher of Black Enterprise.