There are inheritance planning tools that can be used to address various different sets of circumstances. You should understand all the facts and make fully informed decisions, especially if you are a parent.
Unfortunately, a significant percentage of marriages end in divorce. The figure of 50 percent is often used, and the majority of second and third marriages ultimately fail to withstand the test of time.
If you are a parent who has gone through a divorce, and you decide to get remarried, you should keep these statistics in mind. You may want to consider the creation of a premarital agreement to protect your interests since so many second and third marriages do not last.
There is also the matter of the inheritances that you want to leave to your children from a previous marriage. If you simply allow your new spouse to inherit all of your property after you are gone, your children could ultimately be left out in the cold.
QTIP Trusts
To seize control of the situation, you could utilize an estate planning tool called a qualified terminable interest property trust. Since this is quite a mouthful to articulate, these trusts are often referred to as QTIP trusts.
The way that it works is you fund the trust, and your spouse would be the first beneficiary. Your children would be the final beneficiaries of the trust.
In the trust declaration, you name a trustee to administer the trust after your passing. Many people utilize a corporate trustee like a trust company or the trust section of a bank.
If you die before your spouse does, the trustee would be able to distribute the earnings from the trust to your surviving spouse for the duration of his or her life. Your surviving spouse could also utilize property that was conveyed into the qualified terminable interest property trust.
Your spouse would not have the ability to change the final beneficiary designation. After the death of your spouse, your children would inherit the property that is contained in the trust.
This type of trust can provide a solution that satisfies all of your inheritance planning objectives.
Take Advantage of Our Resources
There are many very valuable resources on this website that you can access free of charge. One of them is our extensive library of special reports. They cover many different estate planning and elder law topics, and they are comprehensive in nature, but easy for a layperson to understand.
You can download a single report, or multiple different ones if you are interested in a number of different facets of the estate planning process. To check out all the titles, click the following link: Free Estate Planning Special Reports.
Attend a Free Estate Planning Seminar
We offer estate planning seminars on an ongoing basis. If you attend one of these interesting information sessions, you can obtain a great deal of very important knowledge. When you know the facts, you can take the correct steps to preserve your legacy and provide for your loved ones in the optimal manner.
There is typically a rather hefty charge to attend legal seminars that are conducted by licensed attorneys. We are committed to education, and we do not want people to stay uninformed because of a few dollars. As a result, we offer our seminars on a complimentary basis. That’s right, there is no admission charge at all.
This being stated, space is limited, and these sessions tend to fill up rapidly. As a result, we do ask that you register in advance so that we can reserve your seat. You can visit our seminar schedule page to see the current dates. When you identify the one that works for you, click on it and follow the simple instructions to register.
Contact Our Firm!
We offer no obligation remote consultation during this pandemic, so you can contact us to set up an appointment if you want to discuss your estate planning goals with a licensed professional. To get in touch, send us a message through our contact page or call us at (860) 548-1000.
Mr. Nirenstein is licensed to practice before the courts of the State of Connecticut and the United States District Court. He is a member of the Connecticut and Hartford County Bar Associations, and the Estate and Probate, Elder Law, Business Law and Real Estate Sections of the Connecticut Bar Association.
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