Demographics – This is pretty straight forward. Be sure to fill in all the information you can.
Husband
Wife
Prior Marriages – Please list the first name of prior spouses or partners in chronological order. Use “H1” to indicate husband’s first prior spouse or “W1” for wife’s. This will be important with respect to your children and may impact how we draft certain provisions.
Children
Parentage
1. List you children in age order oldest to youngest. Use the symbols from the “Prior Marriage” section above to indicate parentage:
H1, H2, etc. for a child from a husband’s prior marriages or relationship.
W1, W2, etc. for a child from a wife’s prior marriages or relationship.
H/W for children of you current marriage or relationship.
2. If a child beneficiary is not a natural child or either husband or wife, use the following symbols to indicate relationship:
HA for a child adopted by the husband prior to your current marriage.
WA for a child adopted by the wife prior to your current marriage.
HWA for a child adopted by during your current marriage.
Other for situations not considered and then explain in notes at the end.
State – This give us an idea of the geographic proximity of the children to you.
Trust
Original Trustees – You are the original Trustees of your trust. Typically, upon the first death the surviving spouse continues as the sole Trustee. If you have different ideas then let us know in the notes at the end.
Example: Upon the first death, a child becomes the co-trustee with the surviving spouse to provide guidance and protect the estate from future spouses.
Successor Trustees – Successor Trustees take over the Trust after the Original Trustees are dead or have lost their capacity or competence. Children are often named but anyone can be appointed.
Example 1: You decide to name them in order of age so that no one gets offended.
Example 2: Certain children have better judgment or financial expertise than others so you name them first.
Example 3: You don’t trust any of your kids for whatever reason – spendthrift, too emotional, selfish, immature, etc. You decide to choose you brother or a trusted friend or advisor.
Note: When the Original Trustees are all dead, the Trust becomes “irrevocable” and therefore cannot be altered by any Successor Trustee. The Successor Trustee is responsible to follow the instructions and rules laid out in the Trust document without deviation. The exceptions would be if you decided to give a Successor Trustee discretion in certain matters. This will be addressed in the Distribution Sections below.
Geographic Proximity – It may be difficult and expensive to settle your affairs from a long distance. One consideration in selecting your Successor Trustees is where they live. It may be prudent to choose locals if they are available and trusted.
Trust Distribution
Please describe what you want to have happen with your stuff upon your death. Here are some examples to guide you and help you think this through.
Example 1: (most common) The Trust Estate is to be divided equally among your children. If a child should predecease you, his/her share would then pass to their children in equal shares. If they had no children then the deceased child’s share would be split equally between the other children.
Example 2: Similar to example one but you have minor children so you want the Trust Estate held in the Trust. The Successor Trustee may have discretion to make distributions for the children’s health, education, support and maintenance until the youngest child turns a certain age, say 21, at which time the remaining assets are split up equally as in Example 1 above.
Example 3: At the death of the survivor of Trustors the residue of this Trust shall be distributed as follows: Trustee shall distribute the assets of the Trust to Trustors’ son, Christian. If Christian is not then surviving, said assets shall pass to his issue, per stirpes.
Provided, however, if Trustors' son shall not be then surviving and shall leave no issue then surviving, said assets shall pass to Trustors' parents as follows: One full share to be divided equally among Stephen and Colleen. One full share to be divided equally among Keith and Connie. Provided, however, if any of Trustors’ parents are not then surviving, said items shall pass to his or her spouse.
Example 4: When the Settlors' youngest child has reached 25 years of age, the Trustee, as soon as is conveniently possible, shall divide the remaining property of the Trust Estate into shares to create one share for each of Settlors' then living children and one share collectively for the issue of each of Settlors' then deceased children, subject to the following specific instruction to the Trustee: Settlors direct that Trust estate shall be distributed as follows: Twenty-Five (25%) percent shall be distributed to Christina, per stirpes, Fifty (50%) percent shall be distributed to Matthew, per stirpes and Twelve and a Half (12.5%) percent shall be distributed to each Camilla and Calder, Settlors’ grandchildren, per stirpes. In the event that either grandchild should predecease Settlor, leaving no children, such share shall go to Christina.
Example 5:
Personal Representatives or Executor
The Personal Representative is the person who is responsible to administer a deceased person’s probate estate, that is, the distribution of assets not owned by the Trust. They would distribute specific bequests to specific individuals and work with the probate court.
The Will is usually a “pour over” Will where the heir of the assets controlled by the Will is the Trust. So the Trust becomes the central point for all distributions.
The duties of the Successor Trustee of the Trust and the Personal Representative are so intertwined and require a lot of coordination.. Therefore, they are typically the same person. This simplifies the estate settlement process. However, you are free to name whoever you want to any positions.
Just as the surviving spouse remains the Trustee of the Trust, spouses usually name each other as their respective Personal Representatives.
Alternate Personal Representatives – If the named Personal Representative is unable to serve for whatever reason, alternates are named in successive order just like the Successor Trustees. In fact, they are typically the same people in the same order. Again, you are free to name whoever you want to any positions.
Geographic Proximity – It may be difficult and expensive to settle your affairs from a long distance. One consideration in selecting you Personal Representative or Alternate PRs is where they live. It may be prudent to choose locals if they are available and trusted.