Trust administration: how professional input can help

California estate planners customarily strive to ensure that their planning goals are promoted concerning future generations.

One way that legions of planners do that optimally well is through trust creation. As estate planning commentators routinely note, trusts are impressively flexible instruments that confer broad-based advantages on both their creators and beneficiaries.

A planner (often called a grantor) can establish a trust in which control is retained during life, with benefits flowing to recipients following death. He or she can safeguard the interests of a loved one with special needs, ensure asset distribution to heirs in a specified way, provide for charitable giving and more.

Appointment of a trusted person to administer a trust is centrally important in the planning process. We note at the established Bay Area Law Offices of Berge & Berge that grantors often “choose to designate a trusted family member or friend to oversee an estate plan upon incapacitation or death.”

That duty can be taxing, with a trustee’s responsibilities being many and varied. Beneficiaries often have questions and sometimes lodge challenges. Truss assets must be duly catalogued and managed. Paperwork routinely piles up. Accuracy must be maintained. Personal liability must be noted and protected against.

For those and additional reasons, trustees often enlist help from planning professionals, such as a proven estate planning law firm with integrated acumen in financial and tax matters.

Many people feel proud and rewarded when a family member or close friend asks them to assume the important role of trust administrator. They often find that they can carry out their important tasks most effectively when they have ready guidance from a legal professional.

Facebook
Twitter
LinkedIn
Search

Categories

Archives

Archives