Within the Trust for Descendants (TFD), you can choose an age at which a beneficiary becomes their own trustee, enable a withdrawal right, select which descendants are included, power of appointment, opt to never give control leaving management to a Successor Trustee after your passing.
Age of Control
You (the grantor) serve as the trustee while living. After your passing, the Successor Trustee manages the sub-trust until the beneficiary reaches the specified age of control. At that point, the beneficiary becomes the trustee of their own trust.
Withdrawal Right
Our documents support a modern planning feature called a “withdrawal right.” This allows you to designate an interim age and a percentage of the trust that the beneficiary can request from the trustee upon reaching that age.
Note: This option only appears if you select “When the descendants reach a specific age” in the prompt asking when each descendant’s trust should end.
No distribution is required if it is not desired, and the trustee and beneficiary can work together to decide what makes the most sense for the beneficiary, without the headaches involved if no distribution occurs.
Please note: You cannot set multiple inheritance ages for gradual distribution within the current workflow.
Power of Appointment:
You can choose to provide the primary beneficiary with the ability to redistribute the trust assets. This power is often included if controlling how the primary beneficiary spends their inheritance is less important to you. This power allows the primary beneficiary to account for a large difference in financial resources among your descendants, to provide for a beloved spouse after their own death, or to reduce income or estate taxes.
Never Give Control
You remain the trustee during your lifetime. After your death, the Successor Trustee continues to manage the sub-trust. The beneficiary never becomes the trustee and has no direct control.
Please Note:
The control option you select applies uniformly to all individuals included in the Trust for Descendants (TFD).
You cannot assign different control options to individual descendants within the same TFD.
The TFD is triggered within the workflow when you indicate within the "Family" section of the workflow by entering a "Child". You have to pass to your children to be able to do it, and then you can also include their descendants (such as grandchildren).
Your descendants are your children, grandchildren, or any of their offspring. It does not include any of their spouses, your spouse, your siblings, your parents, or other relatives.
Here is a helpful resource article that goes into more detail on the Trust for Descendants: Trust for Descendant Explained