Now offering Testamentary Trusts

Establish a Testamentary Trust under your Last Will and Testament as an effective way to manage assets for beneficiaries after you pass away.

TESTAMENTARY TRUSTS EXPLAINED

What is a Testamentary Trust?

A Testamentary Trust is a Trust under your Will. This means directions for how the Trust should be set up are outlined in advance in your Last Will and Testament. It’s important to understand that a Testamentary Trust doesn’t become established until you pass away. You use your Will to appoint an executor and to state other directions for the Trust, including who the trustee and beneficiaries should be and what assets the Trust should hold. Upon your passing, the Trust can then be seamlessly established and funded.

Testamentary Trusts can be excellent estate planning tools. They’re often used as a way to set up financial structure and security for minors who may not be able to manage an inheritance due to maturity level, age or any other reason. This type of Trust can be an effective way to ensure that assets are professionally managed for beneficiaries.

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TESTAMENTARY TRUST BENEFITS

Testamentary Trusts for Children & Blended Families

Testamentary Trusts have a number of beneficial aspects, especially if you’re setting up an Estate Plan for the benefit of minors, or in the case of blended families. Some of these benefits might include:

Greater control and protection over assets
Ability to limit beneficiary’s access until determined age or time
Can be modified during the Grantor’s (the person who is making the Estate Plan) lifetime

PURPOSE OF A TESTAMENTARY TRUST

How a Testamentary Trust Works

One of the biggest questions people often have about this estate planning tool is how is a Testamentary Trust different from a Living Trust? The first (and perhaps biggest) difference is that Testamentary Trusts do not take effect until the Grantor passes away. Living Trusts, by contrast, take effect as soon as you fund them.

Once the Grantor passes away, the Trust is created, funded and becomes irrevocable (meaning it can’t be changed). This gives the Grantor great flexibility to make changes at any time during his or her lifetime, with little effort. When a Testamentary Trust is created, all of the guidelines are dictated directly from the Will, which states how the Trust should benefit anyone who stands to inherit assets.

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TRUST & WILL

How to Create a Testamentary Trust at Trust & Will:

1

Create a Will-Based Estate Plan.
Get started by creating an account and selecting a Will-Based Estate Plan. We make it easy by guiding you through questions one step at a time.
2

Add age-based conditions to your distributions.
As you move through the process, you will be asked if you'd like to add conditions to your beneficiary distributions. Select "at specific ages (up to three)" or "at a minimum age."
3

A Testamentary Trust provision will be added to your Will.
That's it! By adding an age-based condition to one or more of your distributions, you will have a Testamentary Trust clause added to your Last Will and Testament.

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