A living trust is an estate planning device that you should explore when you are devising your estate plan. There are numerous different advantages that these trusts provide, and one of them is the ability to leave behind specific instructions that the trustee must follow after your passing.
Spendthrift Protections
You may not feel comfortable about leaving direct, lump sum inheritances to people in your family who are not good money managers. If your spendthrift heirs were to burn through their inheritances too quickly, they may have no one to turn to after a few years.
As an alternative to a last will that facilitates lump sum asset transfers, you could create a revocable living trust. You name a trustee when you create a revocable living trust, and you may want to use a corporate trustee such as a trust company.
When you utilize a corporate trustee, there will be no conflicts of interest, there will be no longevity concerns, and there will be no heartstrings that could be tugged at by the beneficiaries.
In the trust declaration, you can leave behind instructions that the trustee would be compelled to follow after your passing. It would be possible to instruct the trustee to distribute the earnings from the trust to the beneficiaries on a monthly basis while the principal remains intact.
If you feel as though the beneficiaries are poor money managers because they are still young adults, you could give the trustee the discretion to provide larger, lump-sum distributions when the beneficiaries get older.
Essentially, you can leave behind any instructions that you want to when you create a revocable living trust.
Obtain Detailed Information
The spendthrift protections can sound appealing, but there are other benefits that you can gain if you use a revocable living trust as your primary vehicle of asset transfer. To learn all about them, download our special report.
This in-depth report has been carefully prepared to provide comprehensive information about living trusts. To get your copy of the report, visit this page: Free Living Trust Report.
Our Firm Can Help
A living trust can be a good choice for a wide range of people, and you do not have to be very wealthy to create a living trust. At the same time, there are other trusts that can be more beneficial under certain circumstances.
If you would like to learn all the facts and explore your options, we would be glad to assist you. We offer free consultations, and we give each and every one of our clients personalized attention, because each family is unique.
To set up an appointment, send us a brief message through our contact page: Indianapolis IN Estate Planning Attorneys.
Mr. Kraft assists clients primarily in the areas of estate planning and administration, Medicaid planning, federal and state taxation, real estate and corporate law, bringing the added perspective of an accounting background to his work.
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