Using a Tailored Living Trust to Protect Family

A few customized estate planning clauses in your Tailored Living Trust can mean all the difference for your future beneficiaries.

 

Though it is safe to say we all have our own battles to fight, some may struggle with bigger ones than others. And those folks may be part of your family, either by blood or marriage. When you work with Seiter Law to establish your Estate Plan, we will work together to craft a Tailored Living Trust to help make sure any inheritance is protected against family dysfunction – big or small.

 

When I hear about unfortunate situations like how to keep children from abusing their inheritance or making sure a family business doesn’t fall into the hands of an unapproved in-law, I work with clients to find the right solution for them, usually using trusts. Again, here are some generalized common examples and ways we can work to help you protect what is important to you — your family.

 

Guiding Work Ethic. Worried about your kids and a suitable work ethic? We can design a plan that takes into account that a child be over 18 (21, 25, or older) and graduated from college before making any distributions.  You can even split the distributions up (say 50% at 25 and 50% at age 30) to help the beneficiary learn to manage the money before receiving all of it at once.

 

Substance Abuse. If a child has abused drugs or alcohol and you are concerned for their future wellbeing, we can work on estate plan that works with your trustees to support the child but make it easy for the trustee to protect him or her from the disease.  When the beneficiary is still a young child, it is near impossible to predict whether this could become an issue.  Having this type of clause in place can bring you an added peace of mind.

 

Creditor Problems. Perhaps your beneficiaries are financially responsible; but sometimes life, accidents, bad health, unemployment, lawsuits, etc. can cause unforeseen problems with debt and creditors.  A carefully crafted plan can help protect your beneficiaries from having their inheritance eaten up by third party creditors, even those that don’t even exist yet!

 

In-law Issues. Many folks have concerns about their in-laws – the partners that their children choose are not always their favorite choice. There are ways to craft provisions to shield the assets from the questionable in-law and, at the same time, allow the trustee to give them to the family member when needed and/or appropriate.

 

Special Needs. A Special Needs Trust will maximize available resources for a child who is “differently abled.” Sometimes those types of trusts are not needed until later in life, depending on the disability. Therefore I can design a trust that has qualifying events to trigger a regular trust into becoming a special needs trust as needed.

 

These are just a few examples of ways I work with clients to help them tackle their unique family issues. Just like anything else, there is a no “one-size-fits-all” answer to helping people work within the confines of their family to come up with the right answers for their situation. I hope you will call me and let me help you, no matter what situations you face.