Trusts are critical to be used when a person intends to pass on property or money to another party by leveraging existing control and moving it outside of their existing estate. By setting up a trust in Massachusetts you can control how money will be used and distributed to another person.
This can be especially relevant if the other person is a minor or suffers from a mental or physical incapacitation. Handling money can be especially difficult for these populations. Trusts can also be used to lower income and estate taxes since a trust set up for a person and properly funded is not in the actual estate of that person. Tax law has specific rules, however, for determining when an account is indeed classified in that person’s estate.
Since there are so many different kinds of trusts, you should also view your options to create a trust as something worthy of customization. You can discuss your primary goals to help your lawyer give you more information about the tools most relevant to your needs.
An experienced attorney can help you to navigate this situation and give you further understanding of how a trust can be a beneficial portion of your overall Massachusetts estate. You might have many questions about which type of trust to use and how to leverage a trust to accomplish your individual estate planning goals.
A Massachusetts estate planning attorney can guide you through this process and assist you with other documents you might need to create in the context of estate planning.
