U.S. Estate Planning: A Will or a Trust?

One of the questions clients ask us most often about U.S. estate planning is whether they need a will or a trust. Both decide who ultimately receives your assets, but they differ a great deal in probate, privacy, management during your lifetime and cost, and their effect on estate tax is often misunderstood. Below we walk through each, using California as the example.

A Will: Simple and Direct, but Limited

A will is a legal document that states how your property should be distributed after your death and names an executor, the person who takes inventory of your assets, pays your debts and distributes what remains according to the will. Families with minor children usually name a guardian in the will as well. A will’s advantages are that it is relatively simple to draft and costs less.

Its limitations come down to three points:

• It has to go through probate. Probate is the court-supervised process of inventorying assets, paying debts and distributing an estate, and it often takes a year or longer. Under California Probate Code §13100, for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, if the gross value of the decedent’s California property subject to probate exceeds $208,850, the simplified procedure generally is not available (a separate simplified petition exists for a primary residence worth up to $750,000; see §13151). Attorney and executor fees in probate are set by statute on a sliding scale based on the estate’s value (§10810, §10800), with no deduction for mortgages: on a $1 million estate, each fee is $23,000, or $46,000 combined, before court and appraisal costs.
• It offers little privacy. Once a will enters probate, it becomes a public court record.
• It does not cover your lifetime. A will takes effect only at death. If you become incapacitated, you need a separate durable power of attorney for finances; otherwise your family may have to petition the court for a conservatorship.

A Trust: Flexible and Comprehensive, but Know Which Kind

A trust is a legal arrangement in which you transfer assets into the trust’s name, and a trustee (the person who manages the assets under the trust’s terms) manages and distributes them for the beneficiaries (the people who ultimately benefit from them). The most common tool in family planning is the revocable living trust: while you are alive you usually serve as your own trustee, you can amend or revoke the trust at any time, and you use the assets just as before.

Its advantages: assets already in the trust are handled directly by the successor trustee after your death without going through probate; the trust document is not filed with the court and generally stays private; if you become incapacitated, the successor trustee can step in without a court conservatorship; and you can set terms such as having children receive assets in stages or preserving assets for a family member with special needs.

On estate tax, a revocable living trust does not by itself reduce federal estate tax. Because you keep the right to change or revoke it, the trust’s assets are still counted in your estate for tax purposes. For 2026 the federal estate tax exemption is $15 million per person (up from $13.99 million in 2025, raised by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act, the tax law signed in July 2025), and California has no state estate tax, so most families owe no estate tax to begin with. Families near or above the exemption that want to reduce estate tax can consider irrevocable trusts, such as an irrevocable life insurance trust (ILIT) that holds life insurance; once established, these trusts generally cannot be freely changed, and the assets are no longer under your control.

A trust’s drawbacks are that it costs more to set up than a will and usually requires an attorney to draft, and that real estate and accounts must be retitled into the trust’s name (called funding). Assets left outside the trust may still go through probate, which is why a trust is usually paired with a pour-over will that directs any missed assets into the trust.

	Will	Revocable living trust
Probate	Required above the threshold	Not required for funded assets
Privacy	Public record	Generally private
Incapacity	Not covered	Successor trustee steps in
Federal estate tax	Not reduced	Not reduced
Cost	Lower	Higher, needs upkeep

How Meta Mega Group Can Help

We start by understanding your family members, where your assets are (in the U.S. and abroad) and your goals for passing them on, and then assess whether a will is enough, whether you need a trust, and which kind. Documents are drafted by our partner attorneys, and the tax side is analyzed together with our partner CPAs. We help you settle on a trust structure, complete the retitling of assets, and compare trustee options, such as a family member versus a professional trust company; for families whose assets may exceed the exemption, we model the tax outcome under gifting, irrevocable trust and insurance strategies. Beyond who receives what, we also care about writing your family’s values and your hopes for your children into the plan.

How to Decide

If your California assets subject to probate are below $208,850, or most of your wealth sits in retirement accounts and life insurance where you can name beneficiaries directly, a will plus up-to-date beneficiary designations may be enough. If you own real estate in California, value privacy, are concerned about future incapacity, or want your children to inherit in stages, a revocable living trust is usually worth setting up, and it helps to weigh the probate fees above against the cost of establishing the trust. If your family’s assets approach or exceed $15 million, or a family member is not a U.S. citizen or your assets span two countries, you will need to look beyond a revocable trust to irrevocable trusts and cross-border tax planning.

If you would like to know which arrangement fits your family, we welcome you to schedule an estate planning consultation with MMG.