When getting your final affairs in order, you may already have ideas of how you want your remaining assets distributed. You may have made lists of assets and designated people you want to receive them, but you may also have a few concerns about the best way to go about leaving those assets to your intended beneficiaries.
Certainly, you can indicate in your will how you want your assets divided, but you may find that a will does not give you as much control over the use of your assets as you might like. Additionally, if you have minor loved ones you want to leave assets to, you may want to keep in mind that they cannot directly inherit those assets.
What tool can help you?
If you have concerns about how your remaining assets will go to use or how you can protect assets for minor children, you may want to look into using trusts. You may first think of a trust and wonder whether you have enough assets in your Texas estate to use this planning tool. After all, trusts are for wealthy families, right? Wrong. Anyone can benefit from the versatility of trusts.
If you choose to create a trust, you are known as the grantor, or the trustmaker. You can then appoint someone to take over the management of the assets in the trust after your passing, and this person will be your trustee. If you have a specific person you want to receive the assets in the trust, you can name him or her as your beneficiary.
How can you maintain control?
One of the major benefits of a trust is that you can maintain some control over your assets even after your passing. You can put clauses in the details of your trust that indicate when and how to use the assets, if you wish to do so. For example, if you want to leave a grandchild money for college, you can indicate that the funds are only for that use. You could also include stipulations for the use of remaining funds after graduation.
Even if you do not have a specific use for the bequest, you can still leave instructions. For instance, if you have a young loved one, you can indicate that he or she can receive the funds after reaching a certain age or certain milestone in life. Really, many possibilities exist when using trust funds, and you may want to gain more information about how you can put it to use.