Mom, age 82 and a widow, recently visted a local (FL) attorney to change her living trust. She was trustee and trust distributed all equally to my brother and I. My brother and i were successor trustees. The only asset in the trust was her house (value 220,00). She has about 800,000 in life insurance/annuities that listed my brother and I as 50/50 beneficiaries and are in her name. The trust was listed as "contingent" beneficiary. The change she wanted to make in the trust was to eliminate a bank listed as "contingent" successor trustee. The attorney had her abandon the trust, did a new will, and a quit claim deed to change her house back to her name, and changed the beneficiary on the 5 annuities/life insurances to "estate". The original attorney that set up the previous arrangement is no longer in the picture. Her new will leaves everything to my bother and I 50/50 and we are named as executor. This seems like a lot of stuff happening to simply get rid of a bank as contingent-successor trustee.....and now it is clear that her entire estate will go through probate. The intitial attorney set things up to avoid that. Mom can do what she wants, but I dont see what this new arrange ment accomplishes. Can someone give me a clue?