Having a living trust can give you a false sense of security.

Attorney Tom Olsen: We want people to know that simply having a will does not avoid probate. A will simply direct what happens to your assets when they go through probate. We're all about helping people to avoid probate here at the Olsen Law Group in Orlando. Certainly, a living trust is a tool to avoid probate but just because you have a trust does not necessarily mean you're going to avoid probate because remember, to avoid probate with a living trust requires two things.

Number one, you've got to trust. Number two, your trust owns your assets. Christy, how often do we meet people that have a living trust? We say, is your home owned by your trust? No. Guess what? Your home's going through probate.

Attorney Chris Merrill: It's very often that we review trust. I would say, Tom, it could be as high as 80%, 90% that they had a false sense of security. They thought that because they had their living trust, everything was A-okay. Then we come to find out that whether it's real estate or financial accounts, their trust did not own all their assets and they were going to have things going through probate.