A trust lets you decide who gets your property, when they get it, and who manages it along the way — without a court running the process. For many Long Island families, the right trust means no probate, more privacy, and real protection for a home and savings built over a lifetime. Akiva Shapiro, Esq. designs, drafts, and funds trusts for clients in Nassau County, Suffolk County, and throughout New York. Every plan starts with your goals, not a form.
What a Trust Does in New York
A trust is a legal arrangement with three roles. You (the grantor) transfer property into the trust. A trustee manages it. Your beneficiaries receive it, on the terms you wrote. With a revocable living trust, you can hold all three roles at once during your lifetime.
Why bother? Three reasons come up again and again on Long Island:
- Probate avoidance. Property owned by your trust passes outside Surrogate's Court — the New York court that oversees wills and estates. That usually means less delay, less expense, and no public court file listing what you owned.
- Control. A will hands assets over in one lump. A trust can stage an inheritance — at certain ages, for education, for a first home — and can keep a spendthrift heir, or an heir's divorce, from undoing your work.
- Protection. The right irrevocable trust can shield assets from nursing home costs and future creditors, if it is set up early enough.
A trust also works while you are alive. If you become incapacitated, your successor trustee steps in and manages trust assets without a court-appointed guardian.
Revocable vs. Irrevocable Trusts
New York trusts come in two broad flavors, and this difference matters more than any other choice you will make.
A revocable living trust stays fully in your control. You can amend it, revoke it, spend from it, and serve as your own trustee. Because you keep control, it gives you probate avoidance, privacy, and incapacity planning — but no protection from your own creditors or from Medicaid. The assets are still yours in the eyes of the law.
An irrevocable trust asks you to give something up — usually direct ownership and the unlimited right to take assets back. In exchange, when it is properly structured and funded early, it can put assets beyond the reach of future creditors and outside the resources Medicaid counts when you need long-term care. Many of these trusts still let you live in your home and receive income for life.
Neither is better in the abstract. The right answer depends on your assets, your health, your family, and how much control you need to keep.
Common Types of Trusts for Long Island Families
These are the trusts that come up most often in practice:
- Revocable living trust. The workhorse. Avoids probate, keeps your affairs private, and plans for incapacity, while you keep full control.
- Irrevocable Medicaid asset protection trust. Built to protect your home and savings from nursing home costs. Nursing home Medicaid looks back five years at your transfers, so this trust rewards early planning.
- Supplemental needs trust. Holds an inheritance for a loved one with a disability without disqualifying them from government benefits like Medicaid or SSI.
- Testamentary trust. A trust written inside your will that comes to life after probate — often used to hold money for minor children until the ages you choose.
- Life insurance and other specialized trusts. Used for estate tax planning, blended families, second marriages, and business succession.
Funding the Trust: The Step Most People Miss
A trust only controls what it owns. Signing the document is the beginning, not the end. Your home needs a new deed into the trust. Bank and brokerage accounts need to be retitled. Beneficiary designations on life insurance need to be coordinated with the plan — and retirement accounts follow their own tax rules, so they are usually coordinated by beneficiary designation rather than retitled outright.
Unfunded trusts are one of the most common estate planning failures on Long Island. A family pays for a trust, never moves assets into it, and ends up in the very probate the trust was supposed to avoid. Akiva Shapiro treats funding as part of the work itself: deeds, transfer paperwork, and a clear checklist of what goes where.
What Your Trustee Owes You and Your Beneficiaries
A trustee is a fiduciary — someone the law holds to a strict standard of loyalty and care. In New York, that means your trustee must:
- Follow the trust document, not personal preference;
- Invest prudently and avoid self-dealing;
- Keep trust money separate from personal money;
- Keep records and account to beneficiaries; and
- Treat current and future beneficiaries even-handedly.
Choosing the right trustee — a spouse, an adult child, a professional, or some combination — is a real decision, not a formality. A poor choice invites exactly the family conflict a trust is meant to prevent. When trustees fall short, beneficiaries can go to court. Akiva Shapiro handles those disputes too, and that litigation experience shapes how he drafts in the first place.
When a Will Alone Is Not Enough
Plenty of New Yorkers do fine with a will and no trust. But a will has hard limits. It works only by going through probate. It becomes a public record. It does nothing if you become incapacitated. It cannot stage an inheritance over time without creating a trust anyway. And it offers no asset protection at all.
A trust deserves a serious look if you own a home you want protected from long-term care costs, own property in more than one state, have a child with special needs, have a blended family, value privacy, or want to control how and when younger beneficiaries inherit. Often the answer is a will and a trust working together — with the will as a safety net that pours any stray assets into the trust.
Key Takeaways
- A trust controls only what it owns — funding it is as important as signing it.
- Revocable trusts give control and probate avoidance; irrevocable trusts add asset protection.
- A Medicaid asset protection trust works best when set up years before care is needed.
- Trustees are held to strict fiduciary duties under New York law.
- Most complete plans pair a trust with a pour-over will.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do I still need a will if I have a trust?
Yes. Almost every trust plan includes a pour-over will — a short will that catches any assets left outside the trust at your death and directs them into it. It is also the only document in which parents can nominate guardians for minor children. The goal is for the will to have little or nothing to do, but it needs to exist as a safety net.
Does a revocable trust protect my assets from nursing home costs?
No. Because you keep full control of a revocable trust, New York treats its assets as yours — available to your creditors and countable for Medicaid. Protection from long-term care costs generally requires an irrevocable Medicaid asset protection trust, funded well before care is needed, since nursing home Medicaid reviews five years of past transfers when you apply.
Can I be the trustee of my own trust?
For a revocable living trust, yes — most people serve as their own trustee and manage everything exactly as before, with a successor named to step in at incapacity or death. For an irrevocable asset protection trust, you generally should not serve as trustee, because keeping that much control can undermine the protection. A trusted adult child or other person usually serves instead.
Does a trust avoid probate in New York?
Assets properly titled in the trust before your death pass to your beneficiaries without a Surrogate's Court proceeding. Anything still held in your individual name may need probate to transfer. That is why funding — actually retitling your home and accounts into the trust — matters as much as signing the document itself.
What happens to my trust when I die?
Your successor trustee takes over automatically — no court appointment needed. The trustee gathers the trust assets, pays legitimate debts and expenses, and then distributes or continues to manage the assets exactly as the document directs, whether that means outright gifts or ongoing trusts for children. The process is private and usually much faster than probate.
This page is attorney advertising and provides general information about New York law; it is not legal advice for your specific situation and does not create an attorney-client relationship. For advice about your circumstances, speak with a licensed New York attorney.