Trust Circular #19: A Will Supporting the Trust
Hi Folks
Mark Pytellek here again, of Private Trust Makers (PTM), the makers of your Trust.
Here’s the next chapter of the Non Registered Trust story on how you can engage your Trust to favor your financial future.
To all our valued Trust clients, including the most recent new ones, welcome to our monthly free educational circular as part of our program to educate and upskill our Trust clients so they learn to competently use their Trust without having to run to and rely on lawyers or accountants, thus saving you time and money. The earlier Trust Newsletters are available, free, on our website www.solutionsempowerment.org within the “Non Registered Trust” section under the tab “Resources”
Today’s subject matter topic is “A Will Supporting the Trust”.
- Notice 1 the information delivered below is not legal ad-vice.
- Notice 2 I am not a practicing lawyer nor a Certified Accountant.
- Notice 3 the information delivered below is strictly private and confidential, delivered for your personal benefit
A Will Supporting the Trust
Frequently Trust purchasers ask us if creating a Will is necessary now that a Trust is being established to protect the Estate and ensure its continuity.
Indeed it is extremely important that a Will is drafted and kept in the Trustee’s possession for any one of several reasons. These include;
- A Will discloses far more precisely how an Estate is to be treated after the death of the testator, the party making the Will, being also a Trustee of the Trust. Essential what components-elements of the Estate is to be sold, gifted, rented or otherwise disposed of and to whom and in what proportions, who receives nothing, and what is not to be sold and is to remain within the Trust Estate. Conversely a Trust shows only;
a) the hierarchal interests in the Estate, the Primary Beneficiaries having the major interest whereas the Tertiary Beneficiary having the smallest or least interest in the Estate, and
b) who is to assume the position of Trustee/s when the incumbent Trustee/s pass away, as reflected in the parties listed as the Default Beneficiaries, and
- Should an Estate be contested in a legal proceeding by a party that is not mentioned in a Trust Deed as a party to the Trust, nor in a Will as a Beneficiary to the Testator’s Estate, or even worse, is disclosed in a Will as an “estranged” party to the Will, any Judge will see whether the contents of a Will supports the structure of the parties to the Trust and therefore easily discern whether the Plaintiff in a legal proceeding is a pirate attempting to facilitate efforts at “self enrichment” or whether the Plaintiff has a legitimate claim to the deceased’s Estate. A Trust on its own may be sufficient to protect the Estate from a marauding Pirate but there is a small risk a well articulated claim might get up.
When to draft a Will
A Will may be drafted by a Trustee, either directly themselves or by a qualified Probate and Estate Planning Lawyer, at any time, preferably well before the expected end of life expectancy or mental incapacity such as onset of Dementia, so any well drafted Will cannot be legally challenged successfully.
This writer has witnessed personally a number of Estates successfully challenged by family and outside family members who contest the Estate out of greed or personal gain because a Will was either absent or extremely poorly drafted by themselves or their lawyer.
The Testator must ensure they engage a competent Probate lawyer who can demonstrate they can draft strong Wills that are drafted showing intent extremely clearly and are therefore uncontestable.
I hope these brief notes are useful and provide inventive to get your paperwork in order early rather than late so your Estate is properly protected so the people you intended to inherit and administer the Estate do in fact receive what you intended.
Look for the next Trust circular for further insights into practical and exciting applications of the use of your Trust.
Kind Regards,
Mark Pytellek
Principal
Private Trust Makers
in conjunction with
Solutions Empowermentment
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