Having a Baby Changes Everything: Guardianship Considerations For Parents Creating Wills

Having children can be such a blessing, but worries occur when debating the possibility of timely deaths of the parents. Plans of guardianship and financial supervision of the children are issues that can plague new and even not so new parents. If both parents of minor children pass away with a will or a trust, the money will transfer to the children – but through a conservatorship that will be overseen by a court appointed conservator. The conservatorship expires when the the child/children turn 18, and the rest of the funds will then be left all to them.

A conservatorship can be avoided by creating a trust, either within a will (a testamentary trust), or within a stand-alone trust (like a revocable trust). A trust allows a parent to maintain control of the distribution to the children, even after a parent dies. A parent can choose to have certain amounts distributed to children at designated times or have funds that are always there for their child, so they choose to leave assets in trust for the child’s lifetime.

See Meredith Murphy, Having a Baby Changes Everything: Guardianship Considerations For Parents Creating Wills, Smith Amundsen, June 27, 2018.

Special thanks to Jim Hillhouse (Professional Legal Marketing (PLM, Inc.) for bringing this article to my attention.