Significant assets (anything over say, 10k in value) should probably be owned by a trust, corporation, or anonymous offshore LLC or foundation. (Escalating by value). The cost of doing this runs about 300-1000-3000 a year.
Itβs hard to get access to a professional that understands how to do this legally and can advise appropriately. Most financial advisors just peddle overpriced high fee index funds. Like how do you even find someone like that.
There are law firms that specialize in setting up trusts. We found a local firm who handled setting up a trust for our family and it was pretty straight forward and not very expensive. If your family has assets >$1M it's definitely something worth looking into (and quite possibly for lesser amounts too depending on your situation).
There are a variety of potential benefits (tax, inheritance, legal liability, etc) but one that shouldn't be underestimated is how much it can simplify the paperwork, process and delay at death vs just having a will. If you are elderly and have kids, creating a proper trust in sync with your will is one of the nicest things you can do for your kids. Having recently been through the death of a couple of parents, one who left a well-organized trust and the other who just had a standard will, the difference in work required and stress involved was night and day.
