A living trust does not need to be complicated

Attorney Tom Olsen: Let me add a little something else that seems to be common too. That is people that come to us, and they had a trust done by an attorney years ago. They are so frustrated with that process to get turned over with a 80 or 90-page trust and just be completely overwhelmed by it and be turned off to the estate planning. Well, here at the Olsen Law Group, we're all about making things simple, keeping things simple. Why? We have so much experience doing estate planning. We know how to make it simple, and to explain to people in a way that they can understand it.

Folks, if you've got an 80-page trust, and you just don't even want to face the possibility of having to pull it out and look at it again, well, pull it out, let us look at it, and we will probably be able to greatly simplify it for you.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Absolutely. Tom, thank you for mentioning that because I know that, for us, the biggest compliment, which I feel blessed that we get this compliment quite often, is thank people. Our clients thanking us for making it so simple from the very beginning of the process on contacting us all the way through to the signing, including again, reviewing these very voluminous, huge trusts that no one can understand. We are happy to do that.

Again, we feel that it's our job to make it simple for you, the client. That's what we should do. I can't believe how many times I hear people will say to me, "Oh my gosh, I talked to this attorney, and I was going to have to fill out a 50-page questionnaire just to have the first conversation. I was going to have to do this. I was going to have to do that." They are just really pleasantly surprised when they don't have to do that with us. I said, "Well, we should be doing our job, and you shouldn't have to do that."

Attorney Tom Olsen: Our job is to make sure that when the client walks out to here, they fully understand everything that we've done for them and what we're asking them to do as well. Part of the way we accomplish that is that, when we meet with people, and we do their estate planning, we give them an action plan, a one-page piece of paper that tells them what we're going to do for them and what we're asking them to do as well for the purpose of avoiding probate. It's not hard, and we explain it well, but it does require that, for example, that the clients go to the bank and make their bank accounts POD, payable on debt to their kids.

Attorney Chris Merrill: Exactly. In other words, but each step of the way from the beginning to the end, we want to make it very clear and very simple.