The Living Trust: The Fail-Proof Way to Pass Along Your Estate to Your Heirs Without Lawyers, Courts, or the Probate System

The living trust could make the old-fashioned will obsolete. With many complications, taxes, and probate, loved ones could wait up to a year before receiving an estate. But, here is a simple inexpensive way to eliminate those delays by use of a living trust. Completely legal, this book can help the reader work with an attorney to provide for the families' future.

While not a new concept, the living trust as a form of estate planning is not well known to the general public. Abts joins a chorus of experts recommending this device, which largely replaces a will and avoids passing property through probate. This is a detailed and competent, if somewhat stolid, presentation. Readers may get bogged down in matters such as the tax consequences of holding joint property before they reach anything substantive on living trusts. Robert A. Esperti and Renno L. Peterson's Loving Trust ( LJ 6/15/88) is a better organized and a more engagingly written treatment of this topic. Nevertheless, Abts is somewhat more thorough, and his book can be recommended to libraries where interest is high.
- Jack Ray, Loyola/Notre Dame Lib., Baltimore
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.