Estate planning can encompass more than addressing your potential tax exposure. It frequently requires protection of a “fragile beneficiary,” who can include family members with disabilities, individuals struggling with addiction, spendthrifts, and even minors. With planning options available through various trusts, there are ways in which to motivate and protect your loved ones.
Trustee and Beneficiary Duties
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Navigating Trustee Selection
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Ultimately, how well your wealth transfer plan fulfills your legacy and meets the needs of the next—and future—generations depends on whom you name as your trustee(s). This makes your trustee selection one of the most critical aspects of an already complex wealth planning process. To help navigate this selection process, work with a framework built around understanding your specific needs and selection criteria across three core fiduciary capabilities.
The basic foundation for every core legacy plan starts with five documents: a will, an irrevocable or living trust, a durable power of attorney for financial management, an advanced medical directive, and a HIPAA release. John Forster, a partner with the law firm of Baker Hostetler, who has interviewed some of the most successful families in the U.S. shares his thoughts on how to get started with a core legacy plan and what you need to know.
An Overview of Trusts & Trustees
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When seeking to preserve the family legacy and wealth, families can create custom-tailored trusts to meet their specific needs and goals. In this overview, learn about why families form trusts, the different types of trusts available, the essential role of trustee, and why families might choose a bundled trust structure versus a Directed Trust structure versus a Private Family Trust Company.
Modern Trusts: Roles and Responsibilities
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Trusts are often used for tax efficient wealth transfer and liability protection. In exchange for these benefits, however, trusts create certain obligations. Rooted in ancient times, the rules governing trusts are not always intuitive. Understanding their genesis can help us better understand the roles and responsibilities they create and how to apply them apply in a modern context. Whether you are a trustee, beneficiary or thinking of creating a trust, understanding the basics of how a trusts is created and the roles and responsibilities that result, is critical to their success.
A Dynasty Trust is often referred to as a family bank since it serves as a primary resource for the funding of the needs of a family's beneficiaries in successive generations. Given the unsteady economic times and tax uncertainty, there is no better time than now for wealthy families to establish a Dynasty Trust to achieve optimum results, including tax advantages, flexibility, and control.
A trustee of family trusts must understand the legal duties and deliver them with a keen appreciation of family dynamics. We will discuss the range of trustee and beneficiary responsibilities as well as practical tips for making the trustee-beneficiary relationship work effectively. Members will share their experiences as trustees.
The Engaged Beneficiary: What You Need to Know
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What does it mean to be an engaged and responsible beneficiary? We will explore the roles and responsibilities of a trustee, and learn from a father-daughter team about how they make the trustee-beneficiary relationship work. We will understand the roles each party plays and how to effectively approach trust-related communications.Robert Hammett, Vice President, ChiFam LLCStephanie Hammett, ChiFam LLC, NextGenSarah Kerr Severson, Partner, Schiff Hardin, LLC
Life Insurance Audits Versus Life Insurance Reviews
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A Life insurance audit is an everything-to-gain, nothing-to-lose proposition for a trustee of a trust that owns life insurance where significant planning is in place. A proper, thorough audit is needed to mitigate the fiduciary liability. It also starts with understanding the difference between a Life Insurance Review and a Life Insurance Audit.
Impact Investing: Considerations for Trustees
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As more and more investors look to implement impact investment strategies, interesting questions are being raised in the context of impact investing by fiduciaries appointed to administer a trust for beneficiaries. Suppose the beneficiary of a multi-generational, non-charitable trust is interested in integrating her values in a trust established for her benefit. How should a trustee determine if the request is consistent with the trustee’s duties under the Prudent Investor Rule?