What Are The Basics Required To Set Up A Trust Fund?

Perhaps you’re thinking about adding a layer of privacy and control to your estate plan and want to establish a trust fund in order to do so. If you want to leave a legacy behind for your beneficiaries, moving assets into a trust is one way to do it. Trust funds are legally binding accounts that put your assets and money into a trust.

Although a trust is like a will because it outlines what you want to happen to your assets after you pass away, assets in your will must go through the process of probate and could take longer to distribute to your loved ones. Trusts have historically been used by those families with greater wealth to pass along assets to a set of heirs, but you do not need to meet a specific wealth threshold.

The trust is created by someone who opens it to manage financials, assets and belongings. This person is known as a trustor or a grantor. The beneficiaries of the trust are known as the grantees who received their distributions after the grantor passes away, or at another schedule outlined in the trust. Finally, the trustee refers to the institution or the person who owns the trust. This determines how your belongings will be dispersed according to a schedule you set or after you pass away.

You can meet directly with an estate planning attorney to find a trust that best suits your needs. You can then determine each of the assets that will go into the trust and properly retitle them so that they formally become owned by the trust rather than you. Because of the possible complexity as well as the many benefits offered by a trust, it is strongly recommended that you work directly with an estate planning attorney in Virginia Beach who can help you to craft the trust that reaches your goals.