Protecting Your Children's Inheritance with Lifetime Security Blanket
Our firm can help you create a Lifetime Security Blanket for your loved ones for many generations to come. This wealth-preservation and asset protection device can be achieved by forming a Qualified Perpetual Trust and appointing an Independent Trustee to act with other trusted family members, but to have full authority over discretionary distributions of assets to your beneficiaries.
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One of the most effective tools to accomplish the goal of preserving family wealth is a Qualified Perpetual Trust. This trust permits discretionary distributions of income and principal for as many generations as the state law allows. Illinois has provided trust grantors with the ability to opt out of the rule against perpetuities, which is a common law legal doctrine that limits the duration of the trust to a definite period of time. This means that in Illinois, an individual can establish a Qualified Perpetual Trust that can last immediately.
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Appointing an Independent Trustee to act under the Qualified Perpetual Trust is one of the strongest asset protection strategies to protect future generations from losing their inheritance to their creditors and predators. It is becoming increasingly difficult to find a family that has not been touched by either a divorce or a lawsuit. Almost one out of every two beneficiaries who gets married subsequently gets divorced. If your children inherit assets from you and commingle those assets with their spouse, the assets they inherited from you can be lost during the divorce. Additionally, if your beneficiaries are medical professionals, legal professionals, contractors, business owners or engaged in other risky activities or professions, they are highly susceptible to lawsuits and their creditors can also
reach the assets they inherited from you.
During the time that the distributions of assets are under full discretion of an Independent Trustee, the trust assets are insulated from the beneficiaries' creditors and divorcing spouses. If there is no Independent Trustee, the assets of the trust could be exposed to bankruptcy, divorce, lawsuits, and other creditors. Moreover, the distributions would be limited only to the funds necessary for the health, education and support in reasonable comfort of the
beneficiary. This would not necessarily include helping a child pay for a house, a wedding or starting a business, nor would it include buying out a judgment creditor at a discounted amount.
If you wish to leave a safe, secure inheritance, appointing an Independent Trustee (to act with or without trusted family members) will significantly improve asset protection and protect your family assets, and it will increase the availability of trust funds to be used for purposes beyond support of the beneficiary, presumably making the decisions you would make if you were still here to make them.
You have worked all your life to earn and grow your family assets. Do not let the creditors of your beneficiaries take away what you have worked so hard for. Through the use of a Lifetime Security BlanketTM, it is possible to insulate the inheritance that you leave to your beneficiaries from their creditors and protect your family wealth for many generations to come.
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