This story hardly seems surprising. Reportedly, the central idea inherent in a trust — one party’s holding property of potentially varied types for the benefit of another — goes back many centuries.
One recent article on the broad and effective role that trusts often play in estate administration states that those planning tools might have first been authored “when nobles went off to do battle in the Crusades” more than 700 years ago. Departing fighters entrusted their assets to someone they could trust — logically enough, a trustee — for safekeeping in their absence or in the event they died in far off lands.
That trusts gained solid traction from their very beginning can scarcely be doubted now. Scores of generations following their arrival on the scene, they are firmly ensconced as perhaps the most impressive planning vehicle in the entire realm of estate management.
Indeed, their sheer value as planning tools is perhaps unrivaled. We duly note on our estate administration and probate website at the Bay Area Law Offices of Connie Yi that trust creation often comprises “an integral piece of estate planning for many individuals, couples and families.”
The reasons for that are evident and multiple. The aforementioned article stresses for starters that trusts can be structured to apply to any number of family situations. They can confer immediate and future tax savings. They can allow a creator to maintain decision-making powers during lifetime or permanently entrust them to another party. They can control income distributions down the road to provide for — and sometimes protect — children and grandkids. They can fund higher education, direct charitable giving and financially safeguard the interests of a loved one with special needs.
And that is but a limited and representative reference to the utility commanded by trusts.
An experienced estate administration attorney can provide further information on how trust creation might materially promote a planner’s interests in a given case.