Lincoln Park Trust Litigation Attorneys

In this video, our Lincoln Park trust litigation attorneys discuss what a trust challenge is, who can challenge a trust as well as the legal grounds to challenge a trust. A trust contest occurs when a party believes that the “trustor,” or the deceased person who made the trust, was incapacitated or influenced when the trust document was signed.

Trust Litigation happens more often that one would expect and when this has been determined to be the case by a party, a trust contest is filed with the appropriate court. In this article, our Lincoln Park trust litigation attorneys examine trust contests in Lincoln Park.

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In this video, our Lincoln Park trust litigation attorneys will explain how to use special needs trusts in order to maximize social security benefits for individuals with disabilities. We use Special Needs Trusts, also known as Supplemental Needs Trusts, in order to allow disabled individuals to accumulate assets and income in excess of these amounts without reducing the amount of SSI benefits that they are eligible to receive. Typically a loved one will create the trust and serve as trustee, with the disabled individual being the beneficiary.  A bank account will then be opened in the name of the trust. The disabled individual’s assets, or gifts from loved ones, will be transferred to the trust bank account. If the disabled individual is receiving income outside of SSI, the income will be deposited directly into the trust bank account.

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In this video, our Elmhurst trust litigation attorneys describe that a trust is both a document and a legal entity that can own property separate from its creator. A trust is created by an individual or entity known as a “grantor” or “settlor". Once the trust is drafted and executed by the grantor, the grantor or third parties can transfer ownership of property to the trust. The trust is therefore a separate legal entity from the grantor that can own property, much like a corporation. In the trust document, the grantor will set forth an individual or entity to serve as the initial trustee as well as individuals who will be the initial beneficiaries of the trust.  The beneficiaries are the people who the property owned by the trust is intended to benefit.  The trustee is the person who is responsible for managing and disbursing the property owned by the trust for the benefit of the beneficiaries.