Living Trust & Estate Planner
This latest version of Living
Trust and Estate Planner (WTrust) was prompted by two
things: an upgrade to Version 1 was long overdue and the "Live Document
Window" we introduced in Deed & Document Pro was a smashing success that
brought document preparation to a new level of user friendliness.
The Genesis of WTrust
During the development and release (and even
moreso during the recent update and re-release)
of Deed and Document Pro for Windows (WDeed),
we knew we were breaking new, exciting ground in automated
document preparation. We still do a good bit of deed preparation, so
putting ourselves in the place of our users, it was immediately apparent
that the new WDeed program was light years
ahead of its predecessor in terms of reliability, utility and ease of
use. The reason in three words is the Live Document Window.
The "Live" Document Window.
Most document generation programs employ an interview method to gather
information. That is, the user is presented a series of questions about
document specifics, i.e., who is the grantor of the trust. When
you answer all the questions, the program completes the trust
instrument. One of the challenges of this process occurs when you want
to see the context in which your "answer" will be used. Historically,
programs approached this issue in several ways.
Prior versions of WTrust
didn't let you see the trust document until the end of the interview
process. When the last question was answered, the completed trust
document appeared in your word processor where it could be edited just
like any other word processing document. But even though professional
users (i.e., law offices) generally knew the context in which
their interview answers would appear, complex or lengthy documents (like
trusts) could be confusing.
Some programs approached the problem by
allowing you to see a sentence or two of the document on both sides of
the insertion point. The problem with these programs is that many times
a sentence or two is not enough. Furthermore, if you wanted to see more
of the context or wanted to make changes in the surrounding text it was
not possible.
WTrust's solution
to these concerns is to display the entire document,
variables and answers, in an editable window alongside the interview
(Microsoft calls them wizards) dialog. This is what we call the "Live
Document Window." Context is no longer an issue because you
can see the entire trust document. Moreover, because the window
is editable, you can make document modifications without limitation. In
other words, make document changes that are in addition to and unrelated
to the interview questions and your answers.
Uber-Undo. While this may
not sound like much, from a practical standpoint, it gives law offices
the ability to generate more accurate documents quicker. In itself, this
is a quantum leap in functionality from what came before, but we didn't
stop there. WTrust has a back/undo
function that lets you peel off your interview answers and independent
changes - one at time. That's right. By paging back and forth through
the interview wizard you can watch your document undo or redo itself
like magic. Very useful for completing forms and documents!
The few programs that attempt to do all
these things are considerably more complicated than most law office
would like. In addition, the cost of some of these programs -- at the
entry level -- is $800! Wow! A good rule to follow is that if you visit
their web site and you can't find the price, it's not worth pursuing.
Once you've choked on the price, you've got to "learn" the system so you
can design your own documents. We talk to law offices every day, all
day, and we can tell you that none of believe it's worth $800 for this
type of functionality. Indeed none have the time or desire to "learn the
system." With WTrust you don't need to "learn"
the system or program your own documents. We've done all that for you.
Did we mention that there's no annual fees for updates or technical
support? Our last version of WTrust users got
all that for free for about 12 years! We're not kidding!
WordPerfect and Word for Windows - Word Processor
Compatibility
WTrust lets you do
all your formatting, previewing and printing in your own word processor.
For attorneys who touch-type and for all legal secretaries, this is a
major breakthrough. Because law office computing is approximately 90%
word processing, what could be more comfortable and user-friendly than
to use your own word processor to format and print WTrust
documents? Character formatting such as Old English fonts, special
paragraph formatting, manipulation of page breaks, and text editing in
general, including spell checking and grammar checking, is all a piece
of cake once you're in your own word processor. Furthermore, the link
between WTrust and your word processor is
quick, easy, seamless and invisible. Just one mouse click!
Breaking the Code
WTrust has the
capability to permit users to actually go into the program to set up
documents specifically for their office. A particular deed or document
often changes slightly from state to state or even from county to county
based on local custom and practice. The design of our new
WTrust takes this need into consideration by letting you
break into the program document templates themselves and customize them
just about any way you want. If, for example, you always use some
special language in your revocable living trusts, WTrust
gives you access to the actual templates. By modifying these templates,
you can insert your handcrafted clauses into WTrust
itself. Therefore, every new document you create has your language in it
automatically without your needing to key it in manually.
Setting the Defaults
We took one more step to speed up the
document creation process. The document templates are one thing, but
there's also the matter of "filling in the blanks." There's a good
amount of information that does not change from document to document. A
typical example may involve inserting an attorney's name, address and
telephone number in as preparer of a particular document. To expedite
this process, we designed WTrust to allow you
to set certain default information that is part of the document but not
part of the template so that you don't need to reenter information in
the Document Wizard (see next page) that rarely, if ever, changes.
Living Trust and Estate Planner - Program Features
The Problem and the Solution
Living trust software seems to fall into two
categories: bargain basement stuff that is essentially useless and
complicated packages designed to plan the estates of Donald Trump or the
Rockefellers. If you're looking for trust software for your typical
small to medium-sized law office that services ordinary people, you'll
have to look long and hard and you probably won't find anything! We
spent hours on the Internet and found zilch.
Living Trust and Estate Planner
for Windows (WTrust) was created to fill the chasm between
these two extremes. It's an extraordinary program designed for ordinary
estates. WTrust does not stop with the trust
forms. WTrust also contains many of the
complimentary documents that are necessary or useful in completing the
estate plan. WTrust has a pour-over will for
catching property or assets that never made it to the trust estate, a
certificate or abstract of trust for disclosing the existence of the
trust and parties while maintaining privacy. This is one of the
advantages of trusts. WTrust also contains a
variety of documents for transferring property to the trust estate such
as deeds and bills of sale, and a compliment of other documents such as
living will declaration, durable power of attorney for health care and
general durable power of attorney. See the complete list on the
following page.
Document Wizards
You won't have to struggle with
WTrust. The Document Wizards take you through each
document, step-by-step, asking simple questions about the document,
providing examples of the information required and often suggesting
answers based on your worksheet entries. When you've completed a
document's wizard, WTrust completes the
document for you by inserting your information in the proper places.
Moreover, WTrust will analyze hundreds of
places in the documents where there are nouns, verbs, adverbs, etc., and
make sure that every insertion is grammatically correct. One of the most
common problems with lengthy documents like trusts is that law offices
have worked with them for so long and so often, the documents are
practically immune to proof-reading. Furthermore, spell checkers don't
know when the word "of" is misspelled as the word "or." Consequently,
it's easy for embarrassing grammatical errors to be overlooked when
preparing these types of documents. WTrust
solves that problem by giving you a complete document you can - well,
trust. That saves you from looking like a fool when a client actually
reads the document at home and finds mistakes, however incongruous.
List of Integrated Documents
Worksheets:
Planning Documents:
-
Revocable Living Trust
-
Revocable Credit Shelter/Marital Trust
-
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust
-
Irrevocable QTIP Trust
-
Irrevocable Special Needs Trust
-
Irrevocable Qualified Personal Residence Trust
-
Simple
Will
-
Pour
Over Will
-
Durable
Power of Attorney
-
Notice to Principal
-
Notice to Agent/Attorney
-
HIPAA
Authority
-
Health
Care Power of Attorney
-
Living
Will Declaration
-
Do Not
Resuscitate Order
Transfer Documents:
-
Bill of
Transfer to Trust
-
Anatomical Gift
-
Inter
Vivos Gift
-
Deed of
Gift
-
Acceptance of Gift
-
Renunciation of Gift
-
Transfer
on Death Designation Affidavit
-
Warranty
Deed with Survivorship
Summary of Features
-
Windows 7/Windows Vista. Although
WTrust is a true Windows program designed in
Windows 7 and Windows Vista, WTrust
runs in all versions of Windows -- Windows XP,
Windows 2000, Windows ME and Windows 98SE.
-
Word Processor Compatibility. WTrust
is compatible with any word processor that can open rich text
format (RTF) files which includes Microsoft's Word and
Corel's WordPerfect.
-
Context-Sensitive Help. You can press <F1> on
any menu item and instantly receive help related to that command.
-
Balloon Hints. Rest your cursor on a button or
window object and a help window appears, giving you information
about that button or object's function.
-
Windows Copy/Paste Compatibility. If
you have a lengthy legal description in your word processor, you
can utilize WTrust's Copy/Paste functions to copy and
paste to or from any Windows program.
-
Tool Bar. Not that you don't have the menu bar
and pop-up menus for performing common functions, we've included a
tool bar to provide one-click implementation of most common program
commands.
-
Pop-Up Menus. Right-click your mouse to access
pop-up menus for common functions like saving files, starting new
files and previewing and printing documents.