If your will does not provide for a Contingent Trust, your heirs will have full control of their inheritance at age 18. It is a rare 18 year old who is really old enough to be given unfettered access to more than 60 days worth of living expenses. When most people sit down and really think about at what age their children or grandchildren should come into their inheritance, I much more frequently hear 25 or 30 than 18.

A contingent trust is a trust which states that under special circumstances, money should be held in trust and the heir should only get a specified, or limited, amount. The most common special circumstance to trigger a contingency trust is that one of the heirs is under a certain age. An attorney has an enormous amount of flexibility in drafting a contingency trust, and I find that properly explaining the possible uses of a contingency trust can make my clients much more at peace with passing on their wealth. For example, a contingency trust may provide that all living expenses will be paid as long as the beneficiary is enrolled full -time in an accredited university. Provision may be made to allow full distribution upon the heir either reaching the age of 25, or obtaining a four year degree, which ever event occurs earliest.

It is also possible to determine in advance how much money should be available to the heir while the contingency trust is in effect. Probably the most common provision is that the trust should provide for the health, education, maintenance and support of the heir. This allows the trustee a considerable amount of discretion. Depending on how well you know the person you are appointing as trustee, you may or may not be comfortable with this. It is also not uncommon to give an heir a specified dollar amount. The dollar amount is stated in the year of the will, and the will then provides for the amount to be adjusted by the rate of inflation.

If you would like to schedule an appointment to discuss the drafting of your wil, please contact my office in Huntsville or The Woodlands, Texas at 936-435-1908, or in Sugar Land or Stafford at 281-723-2791.