Customer Reviews
Make your own living trust 
2008-08-07
Excellent hands on, easy to understand workbook; will choose to use the completed forms as a framework to discuss with a trust lawyer.
Excellent Book! 2008-01-07
I found the information easy to understand, and useful. I have yet tried the CD, but if the program is a good as the book, preparing the trust document is likely to be a very simple process.
Only for simple Trusts 
2007-11-12
If you have and estate of more than $2 million or if you are in a second marriage and want to create a family trust as well as a marital trust, you are wasting your money on this book.
I learned more in a 2 hour meeting with a trust officer than I did in this whole book.
Best resource on the subject 2007-08-16
In order to help my parents with their trust, I had checked out about a dozen books on the subject from the library. I found Denis Clifford's to be the easiest to follow and easiest to read on a fairly complex subject. I found the book (and his "Plan Your Estate" book) so informative I bought a set for myself.
This book offers lots of "real life" examples of different types of financial scenarios and the best options for setting up a trust that will protect the assets from excessive legal fees and/or estate taxes. It covers almost everything you need to know to either write your own trust or carefully check the details of your trust if prepared by a lawyer.
The CD included provides you with the language you need to write your own by filling in the blanks, as well as the step-by-step procedure to cover all the bases to be certain the trust meets all the legal & tax requirements for trusts.
This book is also apparently updated each year, as the tax and estate laws are frequently being revised. I highly recommend this book, and also highly recommend as a companion book that covers other aspects of financial planning, wills, etc., Dennis Clifford's Plan Your Estate.
I was so impressed I also bought copies of both books for my parents and my sister so we could all get our finances in order.
Another Great Book From NOLO 2007-05-07
Nolo Press continues the tradition of providing step by step guidance through complex legal processes. Step by step demystification of the process.
Even if you are going to use an attorney this is a good read and you will save many times the cost of the book in having answered your own questions and by receiving a good introduction to the subject.
Highly recommended
Attorney Approved 2006-03-10
Make Your Own Living Trust provides you with all the step-by-step instructions you need to avoid probate, cut estate taxes, and protect your family. Includes the forms you need as tear-outs and on CD-ROM, with instructions for filling them out. Death may be inevitable, but probate and estate taxes are not.
Recommend highly... 2006-02-21
"Make Your Own Living Trust" was so easy to follow I recommend it to all the baby boomers. The disc attached to the back made it easy to print the required forms.
Great buy! 2004-05-17
This book was a god-send! I was skeptical at first because I have no legal backround and I thought that making my own living trust would be complicated at best, impossible at worst. But following a recommendation of a friend I decided to give do-it-yourself law a shot. Boy am I happy I did! I saved a fortune in legal fees and was able to get the job done just as well as if I'd had a lawyer coaching me every step of the way.
Make Your Own Living Trust was easy to use and very accessible. It even has all of the forms you'll need on an enclosed CD-ROM. Thanks to this book I was able to transfer assets such as stocks, real estate and jewelry to my trust, appoint someone to manage the property that I'm leaving my children, and keep control over it while I live. So don't be afraid to do it yourself, you'll save money and get your trust done the way you want it!
Informative, but "Plan Your Estate" is a much better choice 
2003-12-04
The book explained a lot of things well, but almost nobody is going to make their own living trust with this book. Maybe single people with modest estates and no children.
The book has many warnings: "If you want to do blah, blah, blah, see a lawyer. Nolo's living trust program does not handle this situation."
I would give it 3 or 4 stars, except Nolo Press's "Plan Your Estate" by the same author is much more thorough. Better to get that.
Make Your Own Living Trust 
2001-07-05
A generally easy to follow and excellent review of the material. However, a shortcoming is the lack of clearly definitive language for determining how to name mutual fund money markey accounts and life insurance policies in order to include in the Trust. For example, do you name yourself as initial trustee or the successor trustee as trustee of children's trusts as beneficiary on life policies? Do you make Trust owner and/or beneficiary of money market mutual funds. One additional crticism is that forms are not set up as "forms" per se. You must eliminate the "fill-in" language such as Name? for each blank.
