Creating a living trust that foresees and plans for all of the situations that could occur requires the knowledge of an experienced professional. Fortunately, with this guidance, you can structure a trust that helps to ensure smooth transitions with the chain of command. By providing specific direction as to what should happen with your successor trustee provisions, complication are much less likely to arise after you are no longer serving as trustee due to incapacity or death.
Specific Direction Related to Successor Trustees
What are some examples of provisions to consider including in your living trust? Consider the following options:
- If you have a high level of trust and confidence in the successor trustee, you may want to consider allowing him to appoint any future backup successors.
- If you are concerned about the beneficiaries getting along with the successor trustee, you may want to consider giving them the ability to remove a trustee.
- If you are concerned about the burden of trust administration being too great for any one person, you may wish to appoint successor co-trustees and allow the two trustees to divide the responsibilities.
- If you have successor co-trustees, you may want to contain specific language about what should happen if the co-trustees are in disagreement. For example, you could dictate that one specific trustee has the final say.
- If you are open to the idea of a corporate trustee serving in the successor role, you may want to include language that directs the appointment of a corporate trustee under some specific circumstances.
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