I recently met with a successful business owner from Brooklyn. He had built his company from the ground up and had a simple will he’d drafted online years ago. “This is good enough, right?” he asked. He viewed the cost of setting up a proper trust as an unnecessary expense. What he didn’t see were the other costs—the ones his family would pay later in time, money, and frustration when that “good enough” will landed in Kings County Surrogate’s Court.
Is a trust worth the money? I hear this question often, but it’s framed incorrectly. The real comparison isn’t between the cost of a trust and doing nothing; it’s between the controlled, one-time cost of intentional planning versus the unpredictable, public, and often far greater costs of probate.
The Upfront Investment vs. The Inevitable Expense
Drafting a trust and properly funding it—the crucial step of retitling assets in the name of the trust—has a cost. This is a planned expense, paid once, to create a private framework for managing your legacy. It’s a cost you control.
Probate, on the other hand, comes with a series of expenses you cannot control. When an estate is administered through a will in New York, it is subject to the supervision of the Surrogate’s Court. This process generates several costs:
- Executor Commissions: Your executor is entitled to a statutory commission based on the value of the estate. For a multi-million dollar estate, this can easily run into the tens or even hundreds of thousands of dollars.
- Legal Fees: The estate must hire an attorney to represent the executor through the probate process. These fees are in addition to the executor’s commission and are paid from the estate’s assets.
- Court and Filing Fees: While smaller than other costs, these add up as part of a mandatory public process.
- The Cost of Delay: Probate can take months, often more than a year. During that time, assets can be frozen. A business cannot be sold, a stock portfolio cannot be rebalanced, and real estate cannot be easily transferred. This delay is its own form of expense.
Add these up, and the cost of probate almost always exceeds the one-time investment in a trust. The investment in a trust is not about avoiding a legal process—it’s about choosing a private, efficient, and less expensive one.
Stewardship and Control Over Your Legacy
Beyond the raw numbers, a trust provides a level of control that a simple will can never offer. A will is a blunt instrument. It says, “Person A gets this property at my death.” It has no nuance and no ongoing function.
A trust, however, is a dynamic tool for stewardship. You appoint a trustee—a fiduciary with a legal duty to act in your beneficiaries’ best interests—to carry out your exact instructions. Their authority comes from New York’s Estates, Powers and Trusts Law. EPTL § 11-1.1 grants a trustee wide powers to manage assets, but every action is governed by that profound fiduciary duty.
This structure allows you to build in contingencies for life’s uncertainties. You can:
- Protect a young beneficiary from inheriting a large sum before they are mature enough to handle it.
- Provide for a loved one with special needs without jeopardizing their government benefits.
- Stagger distributions over time to incentivize education or other life goals.
- Hold a family business or vacation home in a single entity for generations, managed by a professional or trusted family member.
This is the work of legacy. It’s about ensuring your assets serve the people you love in the way you intended, long after you are gone.
The Price of Privacy
Finally, there is the issue of privacy. When a will is submitted for probate in New York, it becomes a public record. Anyone can walk into the courthouse, request the file, and read the details of your estate—who you named as beneficiaries, what assets were listed, and who you chose as executor. For families with a public profile or anyone who simply values their privacy, this is a significant drawback.
A trust is a private agreement. Its terms are not filed with any court. The administration happens privately between your chosen trustee and your beneficiaries. Your financial affairs remain confidential. For many of my clients, this privacy is not a luxury; it is a necessity.
So, is a trust worth the money? When you consider it as an investment to bypass the costs, delays, and public nature of probate while providing lasting stewardship for your family—the answer is almost always yes.
The first step is to gain clarity. I advise clients to begin with a simple inventory of their assets and a clear list of their goals. If you have prepared this outline, the next step is a confidential consultation to map your assets against those objectives. We can then give you a clear picture of the specific costs and benefits involved.
