When you put together your Ohio estate plan, you may decide to use any number of different estate planning tools to accomplish your specific goals. While a will is a key part of any estate plan, a will only does so much. When you have more specific things you want to do by creating an estate plan, you may want to consider including one or more trusts within it.
According to Kiplinger, a trust is a fiduciary arrangement that involves someone you appoint holding assets on your behalf. Once you die, it is the responsibility of your trustee to distribute those assets in the trust in the manner you asked him or her to do so. What are some of the reasons you might decide to add a trust to your estate plan?
You want to leave assets on a conditional basis
A common reason many people create trusts is so they have the ability to control beneficiaries’ spending. For example, if you have a spendthrift child, you may not want this individual inheriting a large sum of money from you all at once. Instead, you have the option of having the trustee make distributions to this party only when certain circumstances come to be first.
You want to protect public assistance eligibility
Another common reason many people create trusts is so as not to jeopardize the public assistance eligibility of their beneficiaries. If one or more beneficiaries use Medicaid or other forms of means-based benefits, leaving assets in a standard will may make them ineligible for those payments moving forward.
These are just two of many estate planning objectives a trust might help you accomplish.
