Stuart A. Bronstein wrote:
- quote -

I learned that I misunderstood our lawyer - He meant all
along that we would establish these with the parents as
trustees since it's like a gift to their children, so this
is simpler than I had realized. I thought my wife would be
required to be trustee. So it works out as you described.

This is Texas by the way. And thanks much for all the
answers here.

--
Blake Krass
bkrass[at]email.com

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Blake Krass <bkrass[at]email.com> wrote:

- quote -

I haven't noticed if you said which state you are in, so
local laws could be different. But here in California you
really can't do any of what you are proposing without having
it approved by the probate court.

In your case your wife would propose to the court what she
would like, along with terms under which the parents would
be responsible to the kinds for handling their property. If
it's consistent with the will, the court will issue an
order, probably imposing trusts for the individual kids,
naming their parents as trustees and imposing rules for
handling the trusts.

When probate closes the money will be distributed to the
trustees of the various trusts, and your wife will be off
the hook.

Stu

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Stuart A. Bronstein wrote:
- quote -

The lawyer says the approach is okay, as the will has under
"Contingent Trust" what is apparently a fairly standard
clause A about having discretion to provide support for
"health, support, education, and maintenance" of the
beneficiaries preceeding clause B, which has more detailed
instructions of how to distribute the remaining assets. At
the time that the will was written the assets were much
larger, so taking the simple route of getting the biggest
bang for the buck via education would seem by far to make
the most sense for the kids (and for their parents too, even
though legally I suppose that's not a consideration) rather
than tying up a relatively small amount of money for them to
claim many years from now. And at the same time my wife
feels that would be loyal to the spirit of what was intended
in terms of helping the kids in the future. If there were
say six figures involved it would be a different story, and
clause B would come into play more than the standard clause
A.

So going the 529 route is okay - the only question is how to
set up ownership of that since the beneficiaries are still
minors. If she let the parents own it, then maybe she'd be
delinquent in her duties by in effect turning over assets to
someone other than the beneficiaries. It's not a matter of
not trusting the parents or anything like that, but she
wants to be sure it's set up following the intent of the
will as closely as possible to avoid even the remote
possibility of getting accused of mishandling it later.

Does this explain the situation better?

--
Blake Krass
bkrass[at]email.com

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Blake Krass <bkrass[at]email.com> wrote:

- quote -

By what you're saying it sounds like this is an estate in
probate court. So the answer to your question is that it
depends on what the will says. If it's not in court but
being distributed from a testementary trust, it depends on
what the trust says.

When an estate goes through probate, generally property left
to any beneficiary must be simply given without
restrictions. When a beneficiary is a minor, the property
should go to the parent to hold for the child.

If your wife wants something else, she should go to the
probate court and ask the judge for permission to set up
whatever she wants. If she's got a good enough reason, the
judge may go along, if the law allows it.

Otherwise she can't.

Stu

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"Blake Krass" <bkrass[at]email.com> wrote:

- quote -

In administering an estate the executor's wants are
irrelevant. What does the will say? I'm currently handling
a friend's estate, and the will specifies that bequests to
minors are to be done under the state's Uniform Transfers to
Minors Act provisions.

She needs to ask the estate's attorney how to proceed.

--
Phil Marti
Clarksburg, MD

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My wife is executrix of an estate and we're down to the last
steps. She wants to take the money that's left (~$45K) and
create 529 accts for the two beneficiaries, both pre-teen
grandchildren. Can the estate own those accts or does she
need to set up trusts for them with her as the trustee? If
trusts, which type of trust and is it one trust for both
accts or a different trust for each? She has a tax ID# for
the estate but has not established any trusts nor opened the
529 accts yet. She'd like to minimize her future time and
paperwork and make sure these kids get the most benefit for
the least trouble. Thanks in advance for any tips or
pointers to more info.

--
Blake Krass
bkrass[at]email.com

<< ================================================== ===== > << The foregoing was not intended or written to be used, > << nor can it used, for the purpose of avoiding penalties > << that may be imposed upon the taxpayer. > << > << The Charter and the Guidelines for submitting posts > << to this newsgroup as well as our anti-spamming policy > << are at www.asktax.org. > << Copyright (2006) - All rights reserved. > << ================================================== ===== >