[SCadaddle]

A Will is one thing, a Trust is a whole separate matter. In my families instance, the Will simply designated the Executrix to handle the trust. This was the case with my 99 year old Aunt, a long time widow with no children. I, along with her 2 brothers of age 89 and 91 cold called the long time "lady at the bank" one day after the probate period and asked her if my Aunt even had a will. She said she did not know. I said to my dad and uncle that if she did have a will that it would probably be recorded at the County Courthouse. The banker lady' eyes took a very different look. 30 minutes later at the Courthouse I had a copy of the Will. And the lady we just cold called....she was named as the Executrix of the Trust in the Will. Even had her signature. At death, the estate became the trust. And the bank and the banks lawyer managed to abscond about a half a million dollars from a 99 year old woman where apparently none of the family were designated as beneficiaries of the Trust, and the court ruled that since the family, being brothers and next of kin, that filed the lawsuit against the bank were not named beneficiaries, they had no recourse on finding out how the money in the Trust was paid out. My Aunt was a very secretive lady. She was sold on the whole idea that the Trust would be secretive to the probate of her estate process. I was more than certain her church was a beneficiary to the Trust. I asked her Preacher for info. He took it up with the Elders. They decided that since my Aunt was "so secretive in life, it was their intent to have her remain secretive in death". In the end, the bank sold her 18k worth of jewelry through an on-line auction. So much for being secretive.
It's a very long story. I went to the States Attorney General' Vulnerable Adults unit with no resolve and I even went and sat down with the FBI to no resolve. The latter spent what, 42 years and 5 million dollars to try and figure out how DB Cooper made off with half as much money?
So the moral of the story is IF you go with a Trust, leave $10 to a friend named as a beneficiary to make sure everything went down on the up and up. There's a reason the local community based non profit charitable organizations print brochures and leave them on the coffee tables in the communal areas of nursing homes. And when you find the one brochure and do a little investigating to find that the banks lawyer and a member of the banks Trust department are on the Board of Directors of said charitable organization you start to smell the rats.