Let’s face it; two things are true in probate. The first of them is brothers and sisters often drift apart as they grow up and develop their own personalities and values. And the second truth is our daughters and sons are going to share tense moments over what they do with our money.
Of course, we could always draft a complex will with the hope of tying them up in legal knots. However, our trustees might have to relieve our estate of good money trying to fight their smart lawyers off. The solution lies in creating individual sibling trusts and that’s what this article is about.
Leaving Peace and Harmony Behind with Sibling Trusts
Sibling trusts divide some or all of our estate between our children in whatever proportion we decide. Upon our death – or beforehand as we wish – a solicitor creates the appropriate number of individual trusts, and endows then in accordance with our stated wises,
This should put the possibility to bed forever of them arguing endlessly about some or other decision. As a consequence, they are more likely to stay in contact which is the happy ending we all wish our children.
The Alternative Could Be Endless Bickering Like This Example
Today’s Wills and Probate cites a probate in Brighton where an estate ended up in a bank account three siblings could draw from to fund their education. There was no trustee in this instance and the bank needed all three signatures before releasing funds.
The two brothers and their sister lived in separate towns, can you imagine the inconvenience? Unfortunately, they could not change the conditions of the will. This is definitely not the kind of chaos we want to leave behind!
More Advantages of Creating Separate Sibling Trusts
Creating separate trusts for our daughters and sons gives us better control over exactly how they benefit, and ensures they all profit to the extent we want. Ring-fencing our money this way prevents a particular beneficiary from siphoning out an unequal share.
Our trustees will also be grateful we gave them a simpler task to complete. They communicate separately with our children on an as-needed basis. Moreover, they won’t have to deal with conflicting interests as might occur with a unitary trust.
How to Create Separate Sibling Trusts For Your Kids
The principles of UK trusts are simple and easy to implement. This applies to whether we create the trusts while we are alive, or leave instructions to do so in our wills.
1… Trusts are private legal arrangements whereby we transfer assets to one or more private accounts
2… These assets may include cash, collectibles, shares, stocks, property but that’s by no means the complete list
3… The assets are thereby divorced from our personal possessions in our estates and are no longer at risk of bankruptcy
We recommend consulting a trusted solicitor about this, because a trust is usually cast in legal stone after we pass on.
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