A Utah estate planning attorney builds the legal documents that decide who receives your property, who raises your children, and who makes decisions if you cannot. In Utah that means a will or a revocable living trust, a financial power of attorney, and an advance health care directive, drafted to satisfy the Utah Uniform Probate Code.
Last updated: September 2026
Key Takeaways
- A will-based plan is $1,500 and a trust-based plan is $3,500 at this office. Every plan is custom built, so the actual figure can land above or below depending on your circumstances.
- The right Utah estate planning attorney does more than draft documents. Funding the plan, meaning retitling assets, is the step that decides whether any of it works.
- Utah requires a will to be in writing, signed by you, and signed by at least two witnesses under Utah Code 75-2-502. Utah also recognizes an unwitnessed handwritten will if the signature and material portions are in your own handwriting.
- Utah has no state estate tax and no inheritance tax. The Inheritance Tax Act at Title 59, Chapter 11 was formally repealed on 5 May 2026.
- A trust avoids probate for the assets you actually transfer into it. An unfunded trust accomplishes nothing, which is the single most common failure a Utah estate planning attorney sees.
- You cannot fully disinherit a spouse in Utah. A surviving spouse may elect one third of the augmented estate under Utah Code 75-2-202.
- If you die without a will, Utah Code 75-2-102 decides who inherits, and the result frequently splits an estate between a spouse and children in ways people do not expect.
What a Utah Estate Planning Attorney Actually Does
Most people arrive with a single question: do I need a will or a trust? That is the right question, but it is the second one. The first is what you own, how it is titled, and who depends on you. A Utah estate planning attorney starts there, because the documents are downstream of the facts.
The work a Utah estate planning attorney does breaks into four parts. First, an inventory of what you own and how each asset is titled, because titling frequently overrides your will. Second, a decision about the structure, meaning will-based or trust-based. Third, drafting the documents so they satisfy Utah execution requirements. Fourth, and the part most often skipped, actually retitling assets so the plan functions.
That fourth step is where plans fail. A trust that has never been funded is an empty container. The house stays in your name, the house goes through probate, and the family pays for a trust that did nothing. A Utah estate planning attorney who hands you a binder and never mentions funding has sold you a document, not a plan.
What a Utah Estate Planning Attorney Costs
Most Utah firms will not publish a price. That is worth naming, because the vagueness is the point: it keeps you on the phone. Here is what this office charges.
| Plan | Flat fee | What it includes | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Will-based plan | $1,500 | Last will and testament, financial power of attorney, advance health care directive, guardian nominations for minor children | Renters and homeowners with modest equity, no out-of-state property, and beneficiaries who can handle a probate |
| Trust-based plan | $3,500 | Revocable living trust, pour-over will, financial power of attorney, advance health care directive, deed preparation to fund Utah real property into the trust | Utah homeowners with meaningful equity, blended families, minor children, out-of-state property, or anyone who wants to keep the estate out of probate court |
Those are real flat fees, not estimates that drift. The fee is fixed before any drafting begins, so you are never billed by the hour for a plan.
They can also move. Every plan here is custom built for the person in front of me, so the figure may be higher or lower than the table depending on your circumstances. A single owner with one Utah house and two adult children is straightforward. A blended family with a business interest, a cabin held with siblings, a special needs beneficiary, and property in two states is not, and pricing it identically would be dishonest in both directions. You get the actual number before you commit, not after.
Two costs sit outside what a Utah estate planning attorney charges. Recording a deed to fund real property into a trust carries a county recorder fee, paid to the county rather than to the firm. And if a plan is never made, the eventual cost is a Utah probate, which is a separate matter with its own filing fee and its own timeline.
Will-Based or Trust-Based: How to Choose
The honest answer any Utah estate planning attorney should give is that most Utah families with a house and children are better served by a trust, and most Utah adults without either are fine with a will. The deciding factor is usually real property, because Utah real estate is what drags an estate into probate.
| Question | Will-based plan | Trust-based plan |
|---|---|---|
| Avoids probate? | No. A will is a set of instructions to a probate court, so it guarantees probate rather than avoiding it. | Yes, for assets actually retitled into the trust. |
| Public record? | Yes. A will filed with the court becomes a public document. | No. A trust is administered privately. |
| Handles incapacity? | No. A will operates only at death. | Yes. A successor trustee can step in during incapacity. |
| Out-of-state property? | Usually triggers a second probate in that state. | Avoided if the out-of-state property is titled to the trust. |
| Upfront cost | $1,500 | $3,500 |
| Cost to the family later | Higher. Probate has its own attorney fee and court filing fee. | Lower. Trust administration is generally faster and cheaper than probate. |
| Ongoing work | None. | New assets must be titled into the trust as you acquire them. |
Read the last two rows together. The trust costs more today and usually costs the family less later. The will costs less today and moves the expense onto your beneficiaries at the worst possible time. Neither is wrong. They are different places to put the same money.
The Documents in a Utah Estate Plan
Whichever structure you choose, a complete plan is more than the headline document. A Utah estate planning attorney should deliver all of these, because a gap in any one of them is where the family gets stuck.
| Document | What it does | When it operates |
|---|---|---|
| Last will and testament | Names who receives probate property and nominates a personal representative and a guardian for minor children | At death, through the probate court |
| Revocable living trust | Holds title to assets and passes them to beneficiaries without probate | Immediately, and continues through incapacity and death |
| Pour-over will | Catches any asset never retitled into the trust and directs it there | At death, as a backstop |
| Financial power of attorney | Lets an agent handle money, property, and accounts if you cannot | During incapacity, ends at death |
| Advance health care directive | Names a health care agent and records your treatment wishes | When you cannot speak for yourself |
| Guardian nomination | Tells the court who should raise your minor children | At death or incapacity of both parents |
Notice that two of the six operate while you are alive. Estate planning is only half about death. The financial power of attorney and the health care directive are the documents your family will reach for first, and the ones most often missing.
What Utah Law Requires
Utah’s rules are specific, and a document that misses them can fail entirely. These are the provisions a Utah estate planning attorney drafts against.
Wills
Under Utah Code 75-2-502, a will must be in writing, signed by you or by someone else in your conscious presence at your direction, and signed by at least two witnesses. Each witness must sign within a reasonable time after witnessing your signature or your acknowledgment of it.
Utah also recognizes holographic wills. A document that fails the witness requirement is still valid if the signature and the material portions are in your own handwriting. That provision saves some homemade wills, but it is a safety net rather than a plan, and handwriting disputes are expensive to litigate.
A will can be made self-proved under Utah Code 75-2-504 by adding sworn affidavits from you and the witnesses before an officer authorized to administer oaths. A self-proved will is admitted without tracking down witnesses years later, which is worth the extra signature page.
Trusts
Utah’s trust law sits in the Utah Uniform Trust Code at Title 75B, Chapter 2. The provisions that matter most to a revocable living trust are the capacity standard for a settlor, the rules on revocation and amendment, and the trustee duties in Part 8, including the duty of loyalty and the duty to inform and report to beneficiaries.
Spousal rights you cannot draft around
Utah does not let you disinherit a spouse by simply leaving them out.
The surviving spouse of a decedent who dies domiciled in Utah has a right of election to take an elective-share amount equal to the value of one third of the augmented estate.
The same section sets a supplemental elective share floor of $75,000. On top of that, Utah Code 75-2-402 gives a surviving spouse a homestead allowance of $22,500, and Utah Code 75-2-403 gives exempt property worth up to $15,000 in household furniture, automobiles, furnishings, appliances, and personal effects. A family allowance for maintenance during administration is available as well.
This matters most in second marriages. A plan that leaves everything to children from a first marriage does not quietly succeed. It invites an election, and the estate ends up litigating what the augmented estate is worth.
What Happens If You Never Hire a Utah Estate Planning Attorney
Dying without a will in Utah does not mean the state takes your property. It means Utah Code 75-2-102 writes your will for you, and the default is often not what people assume.
A surviving spouse takes the entire intestate estate if you leave no descendants, or if every one of your surviving descendants is also a descendant of that spouse. But if you leave even one descendant who is not also your spouse’s descendant, the spouse takes the first $75,000 plus half of the balance, and the rest passes to your descendants.
Read that again if you are in a blended family. A long marriage plus one child from a prior relationship produces a split estate by operation of law, with a surviving spouse potentially sharing the family home with a stepchild. That outcome is extremely common and almost never intended.
Probate, and What Planning Avoids
Probate is the court process that transfers property from a person who has died to the people entitled to it. It is not a catastrophe, and Utah’s version is more workable than many states, but it takes time, it is public, and it costs money.
Utah does provide a small estate route. Under Utah Code 75-3-1201, a successor can collect personal property by affidavit thirty days after death if the entire estate subject to administration, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000. That threshold is useful, but it does not cover real property, and a Utah house usually pushes an estate past it.
If you want the detail on that path, see the guide to the Utah small estate affidavit. For the full court process, the overview of what a Utah probate attorney handles walks through formal and informal administration.
Taxes: What Utah Actually Charges
This is the question that produces the most misinformation, so here is the current position.
Utah has no state estate tax. Utah also has no inheritance tax. Utah’s Inheritance Tax Act, at Title 59, Chapter 11 of the Utah Code, was a pickup tax tied to a federal credit that was phased out, and the chapter was formally repealed effective 5 May 2026.
What remains is the federal estate tax, which applies only above the federal exemption and therefore affects a small minority of estates. Income tax still matters, particularly the basis step-up at death and the rules governing inherited retirement accounts, and those are worth planning around even when no estate tax is owed. Our overview of Utah estate taxes covers the interaction in more detail.
Five Mistakes That Cost Utah Families the Most
- An unfunded trust. The trust is signed and the deed is never recorded. The house goes through probate anyway, and the family paid for a trust that sat in a drawer. Funding is the plan.
- Beneficiary designations that contradict the will. Retirement accounts and life insurance pass by designation, not by will. An ex-spouse named on a 401(k) in 2009 will collect in 2026 regardless of what your will says.
- Adding a child to the deed as a shortcut. It creates a present gift, exposes the property to that child’s creditors and divorce, and forfeits the basis step-up your family would otherwise receive.
- Naming one child as agent to keep the peace. Powers of attorney fail when the agent is chosen for fairness rather than capability. Pick the person who can do the job.
- Never updating. A plan written before a divorce, a remarriage, a new child, a business sale, or a move to Utah from another state is a plan describing a life you no longer live.
Four of those five are funding and maintenance problems rather than drafting problems, which is the point. A Utah estate planning attorney earns the fee in the follow-through, not in the paragraph choices.
How to Choose a Utah Estate Planning Attorney
A few questions separate a real plan from a document package.
- Ask whether the fee is flat and what it includes. If the answer is hourly for a routine plan, ask why.
- Ask who prepares and records the deed that funds the trust. If the answer is that funding is your responsibility, you are buying a binder.
- Ask what happens when you buy a new property or open a new account. A plan needs maintenance.
- Ask how the plan handles incapacity, not just death. That is where most families actually make contact with these documents.
- Ask whether the attorney also handles probate. A Utah estate planning attorney who has administered estates drafts differently, because they have watched which provisions break.
This office practices business law, real estate law, estate planning, and probate, and the probate side directly informs the planning side. If you would like to see how the same work looks locally, there is a page for estate planning in Salt Lake City and one for West Jordan.
What Working With a Utah Estate Planning Attorney Looks Like
The process is three meetings and about three to four weeks in a typical matter.
The first conversation is a design meeting. We go through what you own, how it is titled, who depends on you, and what you want to happen. You leave that meeting knowing whether you need a will or a trust and what the fee will be.
Then the documents are drafted and sent to you to read before you sign anything. The signing meeting handles the witness and notary requirements Utah imposes, including the self-proving affidavits.
Funding follows. For a trust-based plan, that means preparing and recording the deed for Utah real property and giving you written instructions for accounts and beneficiary designations. A plan is not finished when it is signed. It is finished when it is funded.
Utah Estate Planning Guides
- Utah living trusts: how a revocable trust works and how it is funded.
- Utah irrevocable trusts: when giving up control is worth it.
- Utah asset protection trusts: what a self-settled trust can and cannot shield.
- special needs trusts in Utah: planning for a beneficiary on public benefits.
- choosing a power of attorney agent: who to name and what to watch for.
- the Utah advance health care directive: the form under the 2026 law.
- trust administration in Utah: what a successor trustee does, step by step.
- estate planning in Utah: what changed for 2026.
Frequently Asked Questions
How much does a Utah estate planning attorney cost?
At this office a will-based plan is a flat $1,500 and a trust-based plan is a flat $3,500. Because every plan is custom built, the figure can be higher or lower than that depending on your circumstances, and you get the actual number before you commit. Recording fees paid to a county recorder are separate.
Do I need a trust, or is a will enough in Utah?
If you own Utah real property with meaningful equity, have minor children, have a blended family, or own property in another state, a trust usually earns its cost by keeping the estate out of probate. If you rent, have modest assets, and have straightforward beneficiaries, a well-drafted will with a financial power of attorney and a health care directive is often sufficient.
Is a handwritten will valid in Utah?
Yes, in limited form. Utah Code 75-2-502 recognizes a holographic will, valid whether or not it was witnessed, if the signature and the material portions of the document are in the testator’s own handwriting. It is a genuine safety net, but it invites handwriting and intent disputes that a properly executed will avoids.
How many witnesses does a will need in Utah?
At least two. Utah Code 75-2-502 requires a witnessed will to be signed by at least two individuals, each of whom signs within a reasonable time after witnessing your signature or your acknowledgment of it. Adding self-proving affidavits under 75-2-504 means the court does not have to locate those witnesses later.
Does Utah have an estate tax or an inheritance tax?
No to both. Utah imposes no state estate tax, and its Inheritance Tax Act at Title 59, Chapter 11 was formally repealed effective 5 May 2026. Only the federal estate tax remains, and it reaches a small minority of estates.
Can I disinherit my spouse in Utah?
Not completely. Under Utah Code 75-2-202 a surviving spouse can elect to take one third of the augmented estate, with a supplemental floor of $75,000, and is separately entitled to a $22,500 homestead allowance and up to $15,000 of exempt property. A plan that ignores this does not defeat the claim, it just guarantees a fight.
What happens if I die without a will in Utah?
Utah Code 75-2-102 decides. A spouse takes everything if there are no descendants or if all descendants are also that spouse’s. But if any descendant is not your spouse’s, the spouse takes the first $75,000 plus half the balance and the rest passes to your descendants, which frequently splits a family home between a surviving spouse and stepchildren.
How long does it take to get an estate plan done?
Typically three to four weeks from the first meeting to signed documents, then a short additional period for funding a trust and recording deeds. Urgent situations, such as a scheduled surgery or imminent travel, can be moved up.
Do I need a Utah estate planning attorney if I already used an online will service?
Often yes, for two reasons. Online forms rarely address Utah’s execution requirements correctly, and they never handle funding. If you own a Utah home, a document that was never paired with a recorded deed leaves the house in probate. A Utah estate planning attorney can review what you have and fix the gaps rather than starting over.
Can a Utah estate planning attorney help if my parent has already died?
That is probate rather than planning, and it is a different process with its own deadlines. Utah offers a small estate affidavit for estates of $100,000 or less that hold no real property, and formal or informal administration above that.
Ready to get this handled? A will-based plan is $1,500 and a trust-based plan is $3,500, quoted flat before any drafting begins and adjusted only for genuine complexity in your situation.
Call or text (801) 613-1472, or reach out through the contact page to set up a design meeting. Offices in Lindon and West Jordan, serving clients across Utah.
This article is general information about Utah law and is not legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. Statutes and dollar thresholds change, and how the law applies depends on your specific facts. Consult a licensed attorney about your situation.