Does your Trust set your Kids up for a Fight?

Dear Clients, Colleagues and Friends,

Our office is working with two different clients whose parents set up trusts before they passed away. The parents named either siblings or a nephew as trustee of their estate-planning trusts. Now, those relatives are trying to cut our clients out of the inheritance that their parents intended when they created their trust.

It is not uncommon for us to see clients name an adult child as trustee. You need to be very honest about your kids’ relationships, and recognize that you may be setting your children up for a fight after your death. Usually, the Trustee is in complete control of the trust assets, and if he doesn’t carry out your instructions, or even steals from his siblings, all your other children can do is sue him or her, at great personal risk and expense. Sometimes, this only happens after the money is gone and can’t be recovered.

If there is friction among your adult children, you should seriously consider appointing a neutral third party to carry out the instructions in your trust. The presence of a possible inheritance tends to make old hurts and rivalries more intense, not less.

Call our office now at (603) 554-8464 to schedule a review of your current estate plan and choice of trustee.

New Hampshire’s trust statute is one of the most flexible in the nation, allowing us to divide and combine the responsibilities of trust management among family, friends, neutral professionals, and institutions in many ways. There may be a better solution than the one you now have.

  Best Regards,