Adapting Trusts to the 21st Century

As society changes, many existing trusts are too rigid to offer sufficient flexibility to change with it. Some of these changes include:

• The changing landscape. Changes in marriage, divorce, and family creation are significant and life expectancies are steadily increasing. Laws and tax trends are evolving as well.
• New branches for family trees, new planning headaches. Once you conquer the task of determining who is included in a class of trust beneficiaries, you still have many other considerations such as determining how you want them all treated.
• Selecting fiduciaries. As investment decisions become more sophisticated and trust duration increases, choosing a competent trustee is more crucial than ever before.

In order to bring trusts into the 21st century, all of these trends must be considered, and trusts must be given the flexibility to adapt.

For more information, see U.S. Trust, The Trustasaurus Trap, Blue Paper Executive Summary, Spring 2010.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (WealthCounsel) for bringing this to my attention.