It’s taken you decades to build your wealth. While that gives you the opportunity to share your money with your loved ones, it can also create worry that your years of hard work will be quickly wasted away by those who don’t appreciate what you’ve given to them.
This is a legitimate fear held by many who engage in the estate planning process, but you don’t have to sit back and allow your assets to be squandered. You can take control of your estate plan to ensure that your assets, and your loved ones, are protected in the long-term as you see fit.
Of course, to successfully do so, you’ll have to engage in effective estate planning that looks at creating longevity and security. That might sound challenging to do, and it is to a certain degree, but there are several estate planning vehicles that can help you along the way.
Trusts you can use to ensure your estate assets last
The number of estate planning tools that you can use can quickly become overwhelming. But you can choose those estate planning options that are right for you simply by reading up on what each of them can and can’t do for you. Here are some that you might want to consider if you’re looking for estate planning vehicles that will ensure asset longevity:
- Spendthrift trust: This trust releases assets incrementally so that a beneficiary can’t spend away the assets too quickly. This provides support to your named beneficiary while protecting estate assets from misuse and the beneficiary’s creditors.
- Discretionary trust: Similar to a spendthrift trust, this estate planning tool allows assets to be released as deemed appropriate by the trustee. Given that the trustee has control over when and how assets will be disbursed, you’ll want to choose someone you trust to act in that capacity.
- Incentive trust: Here, assets are held in the trust until an identified triggering event occurs. That event could be the birth of a child, graduating from college, holding a full-time job for a specific period, or completing some sort of substance abuse treatment program. You have a lot of room to use this trust as you see fit, which can drive your loved one to make smart decisions while protecting your assets until your beneficiary is ready to receive them and use them in a responsible fashion.
- Generation-skipping trust: As its name implies, this trust allows assets to skip over your children to be inherited by your grandchildren. This has tax advantages, but it also allows your assets to support your family in the long-term without risk of them evaporating within one generation.
- Remainder trusts: With this type of trust, an initial beneficiary is supported by the trust’s assets, and anything remaining in the trust at the time of the beneficiary’s death is distributed to a second named beneficiary. This adds a bit of longevity to your estate’s assets.
Create the custom-tailored estate plan you want
These are just a few of the ways that you can develop an estate plan that ensures your assets will last long-term. There are several other options that you can utilize to bring your vision of the future into reality. You simply have to know what’s out there for you to use and how to implement them into a cohesive plan.
That can be stressful to think about as you navigate daily life, but it’s not something that you have to overwhelmed by. You can find support in developing your estate plan so that you can put your mind at ease knowing that your affairs are in order.