Things to Think About When Designing a Trust for a Beneficiary After Your Death
There many things to think about when designing your estate plan. One very important thing to think about is how to leave assets to your beneficiaries after your death (and your spouse’s death if applicable).
Most older estate plans just pass the assets outright to the beneficiary. The downside of that is that if the beneficiary is ever sued, divorced or has to go on government benefits, the assets are completely subject to be taken. There is NO ASSET PROTECTION when you leave assets outright to a beneficiary.
The best way to leave assets to a beneficiary is through a trust. By leaving assets in trust for the beneficiary, as long as the language is correct, the assets will only be available for the beneficiary’s benefit, not for the benefit of any creditor.
Over the next few blogs, I will lay out 12 steps to take in designing a trust share for a beneficiary. These 12 steps will help better protect your beneficiary from any potential creditor attack in the future. These 12 steps are very conservative in nature and there may be case law that is more favorable and lenient towards creditor protection. However, for purposes of my blog, I want to take the most conservative approach to education. Stay tuned for the rest of the week to see how to properly design your estate plan.
To learn more about designing your estate plan to best protect your beneficiaries, please consult an estate planning attorney.
