Denver Estate Planning Lawyers

Trusts, Wills, Probate & Guardianshps

Trusts

In the context of estate planning, trusts are legal arrangements involving a grantor/settlor, a trustee, and beneficiaries. You, the grantor/settlor, will place assets like wealth and property into a trust structure that is managed by a chosen trustee (usually an attorney or a qualified loved one) until such time as it is passed on to your chosen beneficiary or beneficiaries, say, at the time of your death.

Trusts have many uses and functions. They are often used to pass along your assets to your heirs outside of the probate process keeping the transfer private. Trusts can also be used to ensure that the assets you wish to pass along are not wasted by an heir but preserved for their benefit from creditors, addiction, or even unscrupulous spouses. Many times clients have children or other heirs that, due to age or infirmity, are not allowed to inherit. A trust will allow for you to still use those assets after you have passed on to care for those heirs. 

Our attorneys at Curtis Law Firm are well-versed in trust law and can arrange to retain use of assets in trust during your lifetime and help you avoid the probate process (including probate costs and leaving a public record) so your assets can go straight to your beneficiaries at the time of your death.

Our firm also helps individuals with gun trust matters. Transferring ownership of guns doesn’t have to be difficult when you have a gun trust in place. Instead of allowing local law enforcement to confiscate guns when you pass away, our team at Curtis Law Firm can help you to legally transfer titles to beneficiaries through gun trusts, ensuring compliance with all federal and state gun laws.

Wills & Probate 

Wills and probate are another area of estate planning that we can help you navigate. A last will and testament is a legal document that makes your wishes known as to how you want your assets to be distributed after you have passed away. Your will would name someone as the Personal Representative of your estate. A personal representative is the person or organization in charge of administrating your estate after you are gone. After you die, your personal representative would petition the Court for permission to begin administering your estate and will file your Last Will & Testament with the Court. There are specific rules that are required to be followed in order to successfully probate an estate. If done incorrectly, the personal representative can be liable to personally pay for your debts after you pass away. That’s why it is so important to talk to a qualified attorney about the Colorado probate process. Probate records are open to the public. 

Whenever we create a trust for a client, we always create a Will as well. The purpose of the Will is to ensure that any assets the client forgot to place in his or her trust before they passed away are placed in the trust and then managed by the trustee rather than by the Court.  

Guardianship Nomination

If you have young children you want to make sure that they are taken care of and cared for by someone you trust. As part of your estate plan we can help you create a Guardianship Nomination. This is a document that your trusted person would present to the Court, after you pass away, to ask the Court to name them as the guardian for your children. Without such a document, it would be difficult for your trusted person to get in front of the Court to ask for that guardianship.