Bad Question: “I want a South Dakota trust and to pay $7,000”

Getting a good result from your estate planning starts with asking good questions that a tailored to your circumstances. Questions posed by AI to ask an estate planning attorney, especially when the prompts to ask the questions were posed by someone with more limited estate planning expertise, may lead you to a less than ideal result. You have to ask good questions to get a good answer and a good estate planning result. South Dakota is a great state in which to have a trust, but first what is your home state? Does your home state have favorable trust and tax laws? If so, why go to another jurisdiction? There are often reasons that might make sense, but is it really advantageous for you? If you live in a state that is not one of the better states for trusts then creating your trust in a better state can be worthwhile, but the next question is which state and why. South Dakota is a great choice for trusts, but you should deliberately pick which state you are going to use. The questions, perhaps from AI “research” are missing the points that are necessary to getting a good estate planning result. The request to get a trust for no more than some arbitrary flat fee that AI told you makes no sense. What does that fee include? How much planning are you getting? What type of trust and what trust terms? What else are you getting? Are you going to form entities to be owned by the trust? Will get you memorandum explaining your specific plan? There are so many details and options that have to be known to determine a fee that if you start with the fee before evaluating what you need you may get less than you need and your plan may fail.