The Purpose of Your Pour-Over Will
Your pour-over will is like a safety net, “catching” an asset that must go through probate and putting it into your Revocable Living Trust.
If you have minor children (under the age of eighteen), you will name guardians and conservators for your minor child or children in your pour-over will.
Despite your best efforts to fund your Revocable Living Trust, it may occur that one or more of your assets is only in your name at the time of your death and the asset was not connected to the name of your Revocable Living Trust. Generally, an asset only in your name must go through probate. Your pour-over will directs that the probate assets are placed into your Revocable Living Trust.
Why is it called a "pour-over" will?
It is called a "pour over" will because the will states that assets that go through probate shall pass into your Revocable Living Trust and be distributed according to the terms of the trust. The asset is “poured” from the probate estate “over” to your Revocable Living Trust.
Why have a pour-over will?
Without a pour-over will, an asset that has to go through probate will pass according to the law of intestate succession. (Intestate means without a will. Testate means with a will.) Michigan has intestate succession laws that direct who will receive a decedent's property if there is no will.
The following are examples of why a pour-over will is necessary.
Your Revocable Living Trust may:
- Disinherit a person who is entitled to inherit from you by the laws of intestate succession.
- Direct that your property passes to beneficiaries in certain percentages, at certain times, and under certain conditions.
- Direct that the share passing to a beneficiary with special needs be paid into a discretionary trust so the beneficiary can continue to receive government benefits.
Without a pour-over will to direct that the property going through probate is placed into your Revocable Living Trust and distributed according to the terms of your trust:
- A person you disinherited in your trust may be entitled to receive their intestate share of your property.
- The percentages, times, and conditions you established in your trust for beneficiaries to receive your property will not be followed.
- The share passing to a beneficiary with special needs will be paid directly to that beneficiary and could terminate that beneficiary's government benefits.
While your pour-over will places property that was only in your name at the time of your death into your Revocable Living Trust, it is getting property into your trust the “hard way” because the property had to go through probate
When you connect all your assets to your Revocable Living Trust that you want in your trust, your pour-over will is not used.
Colarossi & Colarossi, P.C.
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The information presented is not legal advice nor a foundation for an attorney/client relationship.