Living Trust Schemes and Probate Myths

I don't know what consumeraffairs.com is, but yesterday they put up an interesting post about Pennsylvania's attempt to crack down on living trust schemes (it's available here).   These schemes often involve attempts to sell (most older) people high-priced estate planning documents and annuity products.  (Unfortunately, consumeraffairs.com's affiliation with Google means that the page on which this article appears features ads from... people selling living trust schemes.  Ouch!)

The sales pitches for these schemes usually involve a lot of wild comments about the evils of probate, and how it must be avoided at all costs.  Unfortunately, as Deirdre R. Wheatley-Liss reports today on her You and Yours Blawg, myths about probate aren't limited to scammers -- even mainstream newspapers sometimes get into the act.

Living trusts can do a lot of nice things, but they are not for everyone.  What I try to do here and when I meet with clients is to discuss thoroughly the positives and negatives of living trusts and simple Wills. 

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[chadh]

I just came across a very interesting article about a new company for selling property on your own. Here is the article: ( hope it helps sell your home! )

IDAHO FALLS, Idaho, -- emongoo.com, an online real estate website, announced today that their listing service will be provided free of charge. A recent report by Alexa.com showed an increase in emongoo’s “reach per millions of users” by 4,900% over the past three months. This has made emongoo.com one of the fastest growing real estate websites on the internet and an unequivocal favorite among do-it-yourself homeowners and prospective buyers.

The site is free to both sellers and buyers, so it has never been easier to list your property and sell it. “We found it essential to offer our most basic service for free,” said CEO Wes Morgenegg, “so that everyone could enjoy emongoo.com.”

Morgenegg was quick to tell why emongoo.com was different from other for-sale-by-owner or FSBO sites, “Most free FSBO sites are lead generators for mortgage or real estate companies, but emongoo is not. We are a 100% free advertising service for FSBO all across the US. Our goal is sell properties, not people.”

The site is not only free, but receives quite a bit of traffic. CTO Kelly Jensen attributes this to the site’s design, “The site needed to be easy to navigate, those that traffic our site can be anywhere from 15-95-years-old, so we knew it had to be simple and intuitive.” A simplicity which is driving prospective buyers and sellers to the site by the millions.

One of the site’s users in Salt Lake City, Utah said, "I have had a good experience dealing with emongoo. I think the concept of emongoo makes sense. We sold our home on our own, thanks to the help and advertising of emongoo." She joins other users who are saying emongoo.com is making selling your house so simple. Another user from Phoenix, Arizona said “I sold my home using emongoo.com in less than 15 days! It was the easiest online system I have ever used."

And so emongoo.com rolls on, now offering properties in 47 states and 8 Canadian provinces.