A lot of people oversimplify the estate planning process. While it involves figuring out how to distribute your assets once you’re gone, it’s also about your protecting legacy. When you look at it through that lens, the estate planning process becomes all the more important, and the protection of your assets becomes even more critical.
What a lot of people don’t realize is that the estate planning process provides a lot of options to protect your legacy and preserve your familial wealth. And while you’re doing that, you can also spur positive impacts for your loved ones and your community.
How an incentive trust may play a role
One way to use your wealth to motivate good acts is to utilize incentive trusts. Here, you place assets in a trust for the benefit of a named beneficiary. While the trustee may pay out some sums to the beneficiary over time, the bulk of the trust’s assets won’t be released unless a condition that you placed on the trust is met.
What is this condition? It depends on how you want to motivate the beneficiary to act. For example, you could condition the release of trust assets on a child or grandchild’s graduation from college. Or you might want to hold off the release of assets until your beneficiary gets married, has a child, or holds a job for a significant period of time. The options are almost limitless.
Customizing the estate plan necessary to protect your legacy
As you can see, there are a lot of benefits to an incentive trust. And that’s just one option at your disposal as you create your estate plan. So, if you want to protect your legacy as much as possible, then now may be the best time for you to reach out to an estate planning legal professional to learn more about how to do so.