Bequeathing Money to Heirs

Many people want to bequeath some money to their heirs,
but they do not want to completely let go of their control. There
are some ways that you can control the money “from the grave.”
Here is a list of ways to minimize how your children and
grandchildren spend the money in their trust.

1. Bequeath a trust to heirs,
but limit the way in which they spend their money

2. “Anti-bling” provision: No
jewelry, no boats, no airplanes. The heir can only make appropriate
expenditures such as education or charity.

3. Be flexible: What if you say
the money can only be used for college, but the heir gets a full scholarship?
Make sure to keep flexibility in all trust and estate
planning.

4. If you are putting junior (or
other heirs) in charge of his own money, make a co-trustee, to prevent junior
being pressured by his spouse to make a distribution. The
co-trustee will have to agree to all expenditures made from the trust.

5. Be careful of incentive
trusts. An incentive trust is if the heir makes a certain amount of money, you
will match it through distributions. What if one child makes
little money but works for a noble cause, or vice versa?

The above is a summary of a radio show on MMFN Money
Matters Financial Network, with host Gary Goldberg, of Gary Goldberg Planning
Services, Inc. in Montebello, New York, and his guest Martin M. Shenkman, Esq.
an estate planner in Paramus, New Jersey. Listen to the audio clip of this
segment on www.shenkmaneducation.com.

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