Your child’s spouse

30 Jan 2024 · 1 min

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0:39

In this brief segment, Jerry Taylor addresses a common client concern: preventing a child’s new spouse—especially one with children from a prior relationship—from inheriting the client’s assets if the child predeceases the parents. He explains that the solution is to place the entire estate into a protected irrevocable trust at the parents’ death. Within the trust, two distribution strategies are offered. The first pays the child a set amount over time; upon the child’s death, the remaining trust assets are directed to beneficiaries chosen by the parents. The second retains the principal in the trust, distributes only the income generated to the child during their life, and then, at the child’s death, the entire trust remainder passes to the parents’ designated beneficiaries. Both approaches ensure the parents retain control over the ultimate disposition of their wealth, avoiding unintended inheritance by the child’s spouse or step‑children.

Chapters

We don't want our son's new wife to get our money. For whatever reason, clients are not always happy with the spouses that their children pick. And they're concerned that if something were to happen to their child, their money would go to that child's spouse. And if that spouse had previous children of their own, their money would go to them. Here are two ways that can be avoided. At the parent's death, everything would go into a protected irrevocable trust. And then one of two things would happen. The money would be paid out to the child over a period of time. And at the child's death, go to anyone that the parents pick, or that money stays in the trust and any income created goes to the child. And at the child's death, everything in the trust would go to people picked by the parents.