Estate planning for blended families can be complicated and usually involves a number of different considerations from traditional estate planning. A couple needs to determine what their goals are and a professional can assist in determining how best to accomplish those goals.
A few of the many considerations that you may want to keep in mind include providing for your spouse, protection for your children, and tax planning.
Usually a trust is the best way to go in planning for blended families. Trusts can be established to make sure spouses are provided for, while still providing some tax planning benefits and protecting some assets for your children.
There are a number of ways to set a trust up, all depending on what your individual goals are. Also, some couples keep assets individual by a prenuptial agreement, while others do not, making most, if not all, of their assets marital property. This affects the type of planning that should be done too.
If there are any beneficiaries who may be on government benefits, a special needs trust can be used so their inheritance would not affect their benefits.
Perhaps you have a beneficiary who is not financially responsible and you do not want them to have access to their full inheritance all at once. A trust can help accomplish your goals in that situation, too.
When a married couple each does a will, leaving all the assets to the surviving spouse, and then at the second death, distributing the assets to both of their separate children, it’s important that each person fully understands that the spouse could always change their will at any point.
This leaves the potential for the other spouse’s children to be disinherited. It also leaves potential for the surviving spouse to end up in a long-term facility, spending done most, if not all, of the remaining assets on the cost of care.
Read more:
No comments:
Post a Comment