Top Wheeling, WV Honorary Trust Lawyers Near You

Wheeling Honorary Trust Information

Are You Considering Creating an Honorary Trust?

If you have a beloved pet you want to ensure is properly cared for after your death or you want to detail maintenance of cemetery plots, talk with a Wheeling attorney who can set up an honorary trust for you. Through such trusts you can arrange for the care and maintenance of special places, rituals, or animal companions after you are gone.

How an Honorary Trust Works

With an honorary trust, you appoint a trustee to use the corpus of the trust for a designated purpose, such as the care and feeding of a pet or the care of a cemetery plot. Honorary trusts are not legal in every state, and where they are legal, the state law imposes rigid requirements and limitations. For example, in some states, an honorary trust can only be used to provide for pets and cemetery plots. Other states may allow the trust settler to create the trust to ensure rituals are followed, such as a mass being given according to specifications.

Best Time to Seek Legal Help

No matter what your legal issue may be, it is always best to seek legal help early in the process. An attorney can help secure what is likely to be the best possible outcome for your situation and avoid both unnecessary complications or errors.

Tips on Approaching an Initial Attorney Consultation

• Use the consultation as a means of gaining a better understanding of your legal situation.
• Ask the attorney how many cases similar to yours he/she has handled. An attorney's experience and knowledge can speak to their expertise (or lack of) in addressing your situation.
• Your attorney should be able to articulate roughly how long a case like yours will take to resolve and what sort of procedures to expect.
• Determine how comfortable you are working with the lawyer and/or law firm.

How will an attorney charge me?

A reputable attorney will be very upfront about how he/she will charge you. The three most common fee structures that attorneys use to charge for their services are:

• Bill by the hour
• Contingent fee agreement
• Flat fee agreement

Depending on your specific legal situation, it's possible that only one type of fee structure is available. For instance, criminal defense attorneys almost always bill by the hour. In a flat fee arrangement, an attorney accepts a one-time payment to help you resolve your issue. With a contingent fee agreement, the client pays little to nothing upfront and the attorney receives a percentage of the money recovered if you win your case.

Common legal terms explained

Personal jurisdiction - Requirement that a particular court have authority over a person, in order to bind that person to the judgment of the court, based on minimum contacts. International Shoe Co v. Washington is a landmark Supreme Court case outlining the scope of a state court's reach in personal jurisdiction.

Lead Counsel Rated Attorneys

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