We're exploring ways to protect my parents' assets from themselves, essentially. They occasionally sign contracts that aren't the best idea: solar leases, various timeshares, overpriced home remodeling, etc. While we have tried to get them to run any contracts by us before, but it hasn't been too successful. But they have agreed that something like this would be a good idea, including things like funneling money out of their name and into ours, but for reasons below, we don't think that's the best idea.
We want to make sure they have enough to live comfortable for the next 30+ years without us having to help, and of course it would be nice to get some if there is any left. We want them to spend it on vacations and other things that make them happy for as long as possible. Many of the aforementioned things don't, as they've realized some of those were a mistake and expressed regret. While ultimately we want to talk to a lawyer, we want to know a little bit more about what's possible.
Most typically from media, we think of trusts as the opposite, preventing the beneficiaries from squandering the money, but in this case, we want the grantor to be prevented, ultimately.
Is there a way to set up the trustee to handle these kinds of situations? Perhaps an extra set of hoops (plus a credit limit and low normal balance on their checking accounts) will prevent this kind of spending, but we're also worried in 20+ years that may not be enough. Can the trustor rules be set up to deal with that?
What about me and my siblings (the eventual beneficiaries) being a group trustor? Or the rules written in such a way that us as a consensus can decide when to disburse it back to the Grantor for the trustor?
We did think about gifting the money equally between us now, and us disbursing back, but that seems to require too much coordination (managing, investing, paying taxes, other downstream effects of assets like our kids financial aid, etc). Also, one of the siblings could decide to do something else with the money or something.
Power of Attorney seems like it would just let us access and control the money, not prevent them from entering contracts and dealing with creditors.
Assets: tax-advantaged retirement account, and a house.
Desires:
- Protect assets from creditors and medicaid
- Protect assets from grantor
- Disburse funds to grantor with me & siblings consensus (but not just grantor's)
- Disburse funds to me & my siblings with me+siblings+grantor consensus
- stay tax-advantaged until disbursement, if that's even possible
- minimal fees
Are there other alternatives we haven't considered?
Submitted April 20, 2019 at 01:16AM by tsploanq http://bit.ly/2GvCTd2
