Reconsider Outright Gifts and Inheritances
After you have worked so hard and diligently for several years to be where you are now. When you have achieved your financial needs, you deserve to preserve them and leave a legacy when you die. You need to protect your heirs from themselves, creditors, and predators. However, you should note that your beneficiaries have free will for better or for worse.
What Can Derail Your Carefully Planned Estate Plan?
Some circumstances are beyond you, especially after your death. However, you need to make careful considerations to help you make a wise decision about your estate plan. Your decades of sweat and carefully outlined estate plans that you intended to benefit your heirs to the maximum can significantly be derailed in various ways, including:
- Elder children may decide to mismanage the assets, such as business or estates that you leave them
- You may die, leaving your child with a dubious spouse who would mismanage the assets that you have accumulated for decades
- When your spouse makes an unwise choice by remarrying a dubious partner after your death
- When an unanticipated tax consequence significantly affects your assets
- Chronic illness or a lengthy stay at a nursing home disrupts your plan
- A fraudster can manipulate you or your heirs when you die
- An aggressive creditor
- Unforeseen acts such as conflicts that complicate and create a dramatic mess in your family after your death
- You can also consider the possibility of the non-profit organization, which you co-founded, mismanaging the assets you left or undertake unlawful actions
How to Best Pass Along Your Financial Legacy
You need to ensure that you protect your beneficiaries to avoid any anxiety and feel more comfortable knowing that you have passed most benefits to your family.
The good news is that you are not the first person to be faced by this situation as people have tried and others have succeeded in avoiding unnecessary dissipation of their accumulated assets. These individuals have involved legal advisors who have designed an expansive toolbox that protects their beneficiaries.
One of the best answers to best pass along your financial legacy is leaving an inheritance in a discretionary lifetime trust instead of an outright or staggered.
Based on how your discretionary lifetime trust will be implemented in your unique circumstance, it will let you pass your assets to your heirs before and after you die. It works by you giving a trustee discretion over the way and the time that your heirs will be allowed to access the trust assets. Some use of money will be restricted such as when the beneficiary violates the terms and conditions of the trust, while other activities will be accepted, for example when your heir needs money for education purposes.
Getting Legal Help
You may be having or know someone having questions about lifetime discretionary trusts. Our specialized estate planning attorneys at The Mattar Firm are always here for you. Do not hesitate to contact us to assist you in exploring the most appropriate ways to protect your beneficiaries and preserve the assets that you have diligently worked hard to accumulate for decades