How Do I Leave Assets to My Children Responsibly?

Upon your passing, you may want to ensure that your remaining liquid assets are made available to your surviving children, so that they can continue to feel your financial support. While this is important, your estate plan should accomplish far more than this. That is, you may want to protect your children from infringing parties (i.e., creditors and legal plaintiffs), minimize conflicts between them, and, overall, maintain your family legacy for as many generations as possible. With all these things considered, please continue reading to learn how to leave assets to your children responsibly and how one of the experienced Butler County estate planning attorneys at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC, can help you develop a fair, productive strategy. 

What is the best way to leave my children with my assets responsibly?

Generally speaking, many individuals prefer to put their assets in a revocable living trust rather than a last will and testament document. This is especially true when their children are the primary beneficiaries within their estate plan.

This is because after your will goes through the probate process, your children may be administered their lump sum inheritances. Of note, this may be particularly overwhelming for them if they have never handled something with such high monetary value before. On the flip side, these court proceedings may be prolonged, which is an issue if your children would benefit from immediate financial assistance from your left assets. 

So, if you use these assets to fund a trust instead, you may allow an appointed trustee to manage and distribute them to your children according to your set instructions. What’s more, if this is specifically a revocable living trust type, you may maintain control over these assets throughout the rest of your lifetime.

Is it responsible to set conditions for my children’s inheritances?

To reiterate, within your trust document, you may direct your named trustee which assets to distribute to which of your children serving as your designated beneficiaries, and also importantly, in what manner to handle these issuances. In other words, as the creator of a trust, you may hold the power to set conditions on your children’s inheritances.

Namely, it is common for a parent to establish age-based distributions for their children. For example, you may instruct your children to receive one-fourth of their inheritance on their 18th birthday, one-fourth when they turn 21, and the remainder once they are 25. 

Or, there is also an incentive-based distribution as an option, such as letting them get their full inheritance once they earn a college degree, earn a certain level of income in their career, get married, have children of their own, etc.

In any event, while such conditions may be very strategic, it is best not to make them too restrictive. This is because one child may get discouraged and become resentful toward another beneficiary who has met these standards more quickly or easily. Here, the last thing you may want is to drive a wedge between your children’s relationship, and possibly turn these inheritances into legal disputes. 

If you want to ensure you have a strong legal strategy with a reliable team in your corner, please look no further than Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC. One of the skilled Butler County estate planning attorneys from our law firm is ready to be of any service to you.