December 17, 2013

For parents of minor children, passing assets on to their children cannot be the only focal point of estate planning. Rather, parents must have a plan for the management and control of these assets until the children are old enough to handle them responsibly. A recent article discusses how trusts accounts can be used to accomplish this goal.

Even if your children are no longer minors at the time of your death, they still may be unable to responsibly handle an inheritance. There are a number of reasons that this may be the case, such as immaturity, substance abuse, or mental incapacity. Additionally, parents who leave their children particularly large inheritances tend to spread them out until the children reach age 25 or 30.

No matter how you choose to structure the distribution, the simplest way to do so is through a trust. When creating the trust, you can select a person to manage and distribute the assets for your children (a “Trustee”). Additionally, you can leave detailed instructions for the trust to ensure that the assets are distributed the way you would have wanted. For example, you can specify that funds will not be released until a child is 25, unless he or she needs them for college tuition.

Furthermore, a parent can design the trust so that he or she retains access to all assets within the trust during his or her lifetime. That way there is no worry that the assets are being given up too soon. Finally, during the life of the trust, it can provide the added bonus of protection against divorcing parents, creditors, plaintiffs, and business risks.