The Role of a Pour Over Will

A Revocable Living Trust is one of the most effective estate planning tools available. By transferring assets into the trust during your lifetime, you retain full control over those assets while ensuring they pass according to your wishes upon your death. Because assets owned by a trust generally avoid probate, a properly funded trust can help reduce the time, expense, and public nature of the probate process.

However, even the most carefully prepared estate plans can overlook an asset. A newly acquired piece of property, a forgotten bank account, or another asset may never be formally transferred into the trust. When this occurs, a Pour Over Will can play a critical role.

A Pour Over Will serves as a safeguard for your estate plan, by directing any assets that remain outside of your trust at the time of your death into the trust. Rather than allowing those assets to be distributed separately, the Pour Over Will ensures they are ultimately administered and distributed under the terms of your trust.

For this reason, comprehensive estate plans include both a Revocable Living Trust and a Pour Over Will. Together, these documents help ensure that your assets are distributed according to your overall estate planning objectives, even if an asset was unintentionally left outside of the trust.

It is important to remember, however, that a Pour Over Will is intended as a backup

measure and not a substitute for properly funding your trust. The best practice is to transfer major assets into your trust during your lifetime whenever possible. Nevertheless, a Pour Over Will provides valuable protection and peace of mind by ensuring that assets inadvertently omitted from the trust are ultimately distributed according to your overall estate plan.