Your Will or Living Trust
The only way to make your wishes become reality

You can take a lifetime to create an estate only to have someone you don’t know decide who gets what.

The Dilemma

You die with no will or living trust. You had assumed your children would simply step in, divide the estate equally, make charitable bequests to Emmanuel and organizations you have supported over the years, and that would be that. How very wrong you were!

Regardless of the size of your estate, if you do not have a will or living trust to provide direction, a judge, whom you’ve never met, will make decisions as to what happens to everything you’ve taken a lifetime to establish. Your spouse or children will not decide how property is divided or who gets what distribution. If you don’t like that, then you can do something about it.

The Solution

Find a good attorney and create a will or living trust. Whether you have a will or a living trust depends on the size of your estate and the type of property you own. The key differences between a will and living trust are:

• A will is subject to probate, which can cost 5–8% of your estate and take months to settle.

• To use a living trust, you transfer ownership to the trust with you as trustee. You retain the right to move items into or out of the trust, but since you technically don’t own the property, your estate avoids probate, costs less to settle, and can be settled in days rather than months.

• For smaller estates where there is little property, cash, or life insurance, a traditional will may be exactly what is needed.

• You should consider a living trust if you have appreciated property such as a house, stocks, or trusts for family members, if you desire to avoid probate, or if you have an estate of $150,000 or more.

Let’s Be Specific

Guardianship. If for no other reason, you need a will to state who will take care of children should anything happen to you and your spouse. A verbal agreement with a couple at your church will not be honored by the court.

Specific Bequests and Personal Possessions. If you really want to keep harmony in the family, make a list of who gets what personal possessions and attach it to your will. Without such a document, a judge determines who gets Dad’s shotgun, Mom’s wedding ring, the antique vase or quilt, the car and bank accounts.

Probate. Probate is the means by which a judge determines that your estate is distributed. If you have a will, the judge uses that document as a guide. The process can be slow and expensive. A living trust allows you to avoid probate and reduce costs. If you don’t have a will or living trust, the judge imposes the court’s standards as the guide.

Charitable Gifts. If you would like to leave a portion of your estate to Emmanuel School of Religion or another non-profit organization, then a will or living trust is an absolute necessity. No judge will ever determine that a portion of your estate will go to charity regardless of your giving patterns while you were living.

Making Emmanuel Part of Your Estate Plan

If you desire to leave a portion of your estate to Emmanuel School of Religion, your desires must be made known in writing via a will or living trust. Ways in which the School can receive estate distributions include:

Specific bequests: The will designates a specific amount be given to Emmanuel School of Religion. The gift can be in the form of cash, specific stocks, real estate, collectibles, or any type of asset.

Percentage bequest: The will designates that Emmanuel School of Religion is to receive a particular percentage of your total assets or those assets left after specific bequests have been made.

Residue bequest: The will designates that Emmanuel School of Religion is to receive all property left after all other distributions have been made.

Life Estate: You can give a house to Emmanuel School of Religion and continue to live in it until you die. At that point the house becomes the property of Emmanuel. Also, you may provide a house for a loved one after your death, but upon the death of the loved one, the property comes to Emmanuel.

Bequest in Memory or Honor or for special projects: You may use any of the mentioned techniques to leave a bequest designated to memorialize or honor someone via a scholarship or special project.

A Service to You

If you, like many people, simply don’t know where to start in regard to preparing an estate plan, send for our free Estate Plan Organizer. It will help you organize your belongings on paper so you can make decisions concerning their distribution and whether a will or living trust is best for you. Such organization will also save you money because your attorney will not have to take the time to ask you the very questions you’ve answered on the Estate Plan Organizer.

If you have questions about establishing a will or living trust, please contact

Dan R. Lawson, Executive Director of Development
Emmanuel School of Religion
One Walker Drive
Johnson City TN 37601
(423) 461-1530
Email: lawsond@esr.edu

The purpose of this site is to provide information of a general nature. Neither Emmanuel School of Religion nor any of its associates are engaged in giving legal or tax advice. Individuals should seek the advice of their attorneys and tax advisors for specific tax implications and laws governing estate planning and charitable gifts.