The single most effective tool for keeping your farm out of probate court. You maintain full control while alive — and your family avoids months of legal proceedings when you’re gone.
When a farmer passes away with only a will, everything they owned goes through probate — a public court process that typically takes 9 to 18 months in Nebraska and Minnesota. During that time, the farm’s bank accounts may be frozen, land can’t be sold or transferred, and the successor doesn’t have clear legal authority to operate.
A Revocable Living Trust solves this by transferring ownership of your assets into the trust while you’re alive. You remain the trustee. You still farm the land, spend the money, and make every decision. Nothing changes day-to-day. But when you pass away, the successor trustee steps in immediately — no court, no waiting, no public record.
For farm families, this isn’t just about convenience. It’s about keeping the operation running. Harvest doesn’t wait for a probate judge. Operating loans don’t pause because the named borrower died. A trust ensures continuity.
The critical step most attorneys skip is trust funding — actually retitling your land, accounts, and entities into the trust. Without this step, the trust is just paper. We include trust funding as part of every estate plan we build.
A Revocable Living Trust is a legal entity that holds title to your assets. You create it, you control it, and you can change or revoke it at any time. You use your same Social Security number for tax purposes. There is no separate tax return while you’re alive.
When you pass, the trust becomes irrevocable, and your successor trustee distributes assets according to your exact instructions — privately, efficiently, and without court involvement.
For farm families with land in multiple states, a trust is especially powerful. Without one, your family would need to open a separate probate proceeding in each state where you own real estate. A funded trust eliminates this entirely.
We don’t do hourly billing, and we don’t hand you a stack of paper and wish you luck. Our process is designed to be transparent, thorough, and completely finished when we’re done.
We sit down and map out your entire estate — land, entities, accounts, insurance. We identify what needs to go into the trust and design the succession structure.
We draft the Revocable Living Trust, the Pour-Over Will, and all supporting documents. We review everything in plain English until you understand every provision.
This is the step that makes it real. We retitle your land, bank accounts, and LLC membership interests into the trust. When we’re done, the trust actually controls your assets.
We offer an optional family meeting where we explain the plan to your successor trustee and key family members — so they understand their roles and responsibilities before the day comes.
A complete estate plan — not just a document.
The core document that holds your assets, names beneficiaries, and provides succession instructions for the farm operation.
A safety net that catches any assets accidentally left outside the trust and “pours” them in at death.
We retitle your land, bank accounts, and entities into the trust. This is the step that makes the trust actually work. Learn more →
Reality: A Will is literally an instruction manual for the Probate judge. Having a Will guarantees your estate will go through the public, expensive, and time-consuming probate process. Only a fully funded Trust bypasses it.
Reality: With a Revocable Living Trust, you are the Trustee. You still buy, sell, farm, and manage everything exactly as you do now. You use your same social security number for taxes. Day-to-day, absolutely nothing changes while you’re alive.
Reality: Estate planning isn’t about how much money you have; it’s about keeping what you have out of court and out of conflict. For a farm family, a $2M operation is just as capable of being torn apart by a family squabble as a $20M operation.
Schedule a free consultation to learn how a Revocable Living Trust can protect your operation and your family. Flat-fee pricing — you’ll know the cost before we start.
