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Estate planning can be complex and costly, but Trust & Will offers affordable packages. You can create a will for $199 and a trust for $499. While the company is not a law firm, it leverages an in-house team of advisors to create documents on an easy-to-use platform. Trust & Will claims you can create a complete and customized estate plan in about 15 minutes, but we suggest taking your time. Read the legal guidance provided for each form to ensure you create a document that fits your family’s needs.
Trust & Will is perfect for fast, legally binding estate planning. They prioritize education, ease of use, and speed.
Trust & Will Review
As its name suggests, Trust & Will lets you create trust, will, and guardianship documents quickly and for very reasonable rates. If you choose to forgo the personal attorney route, the platform will provide you with custom, state-specific legal documents to plan your estate.
By no means has Trust & Will cornered the market on estate planning; there are several companies that offer similar online will services. However, Trust & Will stands out to us for its efficiency. The website clearly explains its services and prices and even has a robust learning center you can access to learn more about estate planning. Their platform is especially useful for simple estates. You can download your documents or request a complimentary shipment of printed copies in minutes.
We appreciate the company’s powerful data encryption to protect your information. Though Trust & Will does not offer phone support, we tested its chat feature and found the agents to be responsive and helpful.
Pros
Option to purchase “individual” and “couple” plans
Unlimited updates during the first year
Efficient way to create legally-binding documents for simpler estates
Step-by-step written guidance, including most common answers
Cons
Attorney support not available in all states
Additional annual fee after the first year required to update documents
Trust & Will Features and Benefits
In addition to necessary estate planning documents, Trust & Will membership comes with these benefits:
Share access: The option to share documents with loved ones, financial advisors, and other professionals so they can access your estate plan in a virtual format.
Customer support: Trust & Will doesn’t have phone support, but your questions can be addressed in a timely manner via email and a readily available chat feature. If you’d prefer to speak to someone on the phone or in person, you’d need to purchase the Attorney Support service or engage chat representatives.
Account security: All documents are encrypted on the platform, which means your personal information is safe and secure. Trust & Will promises not to sell your information.
Attorney review: Access to personalized legal support from an attorney in your state.
Our Experience Using Trust & Will
Retirement Living signed up for Trust & Will’s will-making service, and created a will using the platform. We were able to generate a personalized will in 30 minutes. To speed up the process, make sure you have all the necessary documents handy, as you’ll need to provide information about your assets, such as real estate, financial accounts, vehicles, and business interests.
Trust & Will’’s “Will” package includes a simple will, HIPPA authorization, power of attorney and a living will, sometimes known as an advanced directive.
After creating an account and paying for a service, you’ll have access to a dashboard with Trust & Will that will house all your estate planning documents. You can also add a legacy contact, which is a person you designate to have read-only access to your dashboard.
Here’s the process we followed for making a will with Trust & Will:
Fill out your basic information (i.e., marital status, whether you have children, your state, etc.).
Name guardians for your children and your pets, if applicable.
Name beneficiaries and name specific exclusions for recipients, if applicable.
Appoint an executor and an optional backup executor. You can also appoint a digital executor for social media accounts, emails, or cryptocurrency accounts.
Allocate gifts and charity donations as they pertain to your property, financial accounts, life insurance, and more.
Navigating Trust & Wills’ online creator is easy—regardless of your technical prowess. The online creator has a user-friendly design with simple form-fill questions to complete your documents. Similar to a tax software program, you simply answer the questions and input information to generate your paperwork. The platform will show you summaries of your information at various stages of the process, as seen below.
Track your progress and edit information as needed using the guided questionnaire and builder.
Then, download your documents or have them mailed to you for free. You’ll need to legalize your will according to your state’s requirements — in many cases, this will require signing your documents alongside two witnesses.
Your documents and dashboard are state-specific, which helps ensure you create legally-binding documents. Our tester was located in North Carolina, so our dashboard also included insights on North Carolina estate and inheritance tax, in addition to instructions for making our will legal.
Policy for Updating Your Trusts & Wills
When selecting a service to help plan your estate, you should look for companies that allow revisions and edits as your needs change. Trust & Will offers an unlimited amount of free updates for a year. Simply access your saved files on the platform and update them as needed.
Beyond the first year, you’ll pay a smaller fee to continue your membership and edit your documents.
Trust & Will vs. Using an Attorney
Though Trust & Will enlists attorneys to help build their legal documents, the company is not a law firm. This means you should consult a lawyer or financial advisor on estate planning steps that are specific to your needs. Trust & Will allows you to share files or loop in your advisor as needed. It’s important to know that its documents are built using standard language to accommodate a wide range of customer scenarios, save for certain customization features.
Many customers praise Trust & Will for its affordability and access to a comprehensive portfolio of estate planning forms. These are especially useful if you need to create a standard trust or will without paying high attorney fees.
If you’d prefer extra peace of mind, Trust & Will offers one year of unlimited support from a licensed attorney who will review your documents line-by-line and offer input. This service costs $300.
Trust & Will offers support from an attorney.
Trust & Will Costs
Choose from three different pricing structures, depending on your needs. Trust & Will costs between $199 and $599 for one year of access to Will or Trust services. If you want to draft a trust, living will, HIPAA authorization, or authorize a power of attorney, you’ll need to purchase the Will or Trust plan, as the Guardian plan does not include a will.
Upon purchase, you unlock access to numerous features and benefits throughout the year, including unlimited edits. However, you’ll need to continue with the annual service (at a deeply discounted rate) to update, revise, and store documents.
Will: Estate plan staple documents
$199 for individuals or $299 for couples
Trust: Assets, children, and healthcare planning documents
$499 for individuals or $599 for couples
Attorney Support: Access to licensed pros in your state
Add to any estate plan for $300
Probate Support: Get county-specific help managing an estate
Add to any estate plan for $1,999
Trust & Will Costs
Trust & Will offers a 30-day money-back guarantee. If you added Attorney Support, it is non-refundable after seven days of purchase or after you’ve met once with your attorney.
Trust & Will Complaints
Trust & Will maintains an “excellent” rating on Trustpilot. Roughly 97% of its 3,700+ reviews are four and five stars, with reviewers stating that the platform was easy to navigate and the general guidance offered throughout the process was detailed and actionable compared to competitor services. For instances where reviews skewed negatively, Trust & Will representatives responded within 24 hours with a resolution.
The Trust & Will Better Business Bureau profile has only two reviews, but it boasts an A+ rating—a score the BBB only gives to transparent, reliable, and reputable companies.
Trust & Will FAQs
What information do I need to prepare a trust?
To prepare a trust with Trust & Will, you’ll need: • A name for your trustBasic information about you, your family, and your pets • The name of the person you’ll designate as guardian of your children and pets • A person to name as Successor Trustee to manage your trust and distribute your assets • Names of individuals you’d like to receive your assets; this could be family members, specific individuals, or charities • Preferences for your final arrangements • Information about your assets to help your Successor Trustee and Beneficiaries collect and distribute your Estate (optional)
Can you update your documents with Trust & Will?
Trust & Will offers free, unlimited updates for a year. After a year, you’ll pay a nominal fee of $19 to $39 to continue using the service and update your documents as needed.
Is Trust & Will legitimate?
Even though Trust & Will is a newer company, it holds its own among other estate planning services due to its easy-to-use platform. The platform is intentionally designed for fast document creation. The trust services are slightly more expensive than at other companies, but you’ll get access to everything you need to create a trust, like access to an attorney, multiple types of documents, detailed learning resources and more. Better Business Bureau accredits Trust & Will with an A+ rating and excellent reviews on Trustpilot. The Trust & Will support team is available seven days a week.
Who is Trust & Will best for?
Attorney fees for trusts are substantial. Trust & Will is a reputable solution for those who want a more affordable way to draft legally binding estate planning documents. The people who will likely find the company most useful are homeowners with a modest amount of personal possessions and conventional assets for retirement. Trust & Will asks if you’d like to designate a guardian for your pets, but no qualifiers relate to family members with special needs. If you have to consider special needs or other complex familial situations while planning your estate, you might consider other avenues that offer more personalized advice.
How secure is Trust & Will?
Trust & Will leverages encryption security methods to protect your information. The website advertises “bank-level encryption” and promises never to share or sell your information without consent.
Conclusion
Trust & Will is an excellent choice for fast, affordable planning for simple estates. Its documents are state-specific and informed by industry experts. You can engage a responsive chat feature as needed and leverage attorney support for one year (as an upgrade).
My husband and I wanted a simple will, and the process through Trust and Will looked simple and straightforward. Since it was to cover the both of us, we paid the extra fee. At the end of the process, the only documents we could download were mine - and not his. There was no way to access his portion of the will or the Health Care Directives, although we went through the entire process for us both.
Mary S.
Spring Branch, TX
April 11 2023 4:22AM
I started to use the software to do a Trust and then decided a will was all I needed. I could not switch, every time I logged in it went to where I left off on the Trust. I tried repeatedly to chat with someone to see if there was an easy way to switch since I had already put in quite a bit of information.
I never, repeat, never got a real person to chat with even though the robot said someone would join me shortly. If this is the kind of customer service I can expect, I think I'll pass.
Eileen D.
Wasilla, AK
February 13 2023 6:09PM
Two problems: Every "chat" is with a different representative, most don't seem familiar with the software. The software has a glitch which the rep "takes to the folks upstairs" but no one resolves. The "specific gifts" made on page 2 are not clearly restated on the last page.
Many conversations haven't resolved the matter, which is answered by, "Well, it really doesn't matter because page 2 has precedence over the summary." That's a sophomoric reply; "...it doesn't matter."
