Our lawyer has set up “Last Will and Testaments” for many families. He has updated ours several times over the past 15 years, usually after we complete each adoption. During our most recent update, he advised converting our will and transferring our assets to an unbreakable living trust.
We agreed, but then set out to explain the individual needs of each of our 10 (at that time) legal children. Since our oldest children are 24, (not twins – 27 days apart) and our youngest child isn’t even one-year-old yet, we couldn’t have one regular trust fund.
He determined that at the time of our deaths, our trust would automatically divide into 10 separate trust funds. He also added that it was the first time he ever had to set one up that way.
Usually a trust fund is set up so that when the youngest child in a family reaches a certain age, say 24 for example, funds are immediately paid out in full, to all heirs. If we were to do that, our oldest children would be 48 before receiving their inheritance, assuming we were deceased by then, of course. Then we needed to include special accommodations in the trust to meet the needs of our special children.
For example, Lyn, diagnosed with FAS, has apparently stagnated around a third-grade intellectual level. We insisted that her trust never mature, she will never have the balance handed over to her. Either the executor of our estate, or a guardian appointed by the executor, will make payments out of Lyn’s trust to cover her needs and expenses.
We are afraid that if she were handed the money, she would give it away to the first person who expressed a need and then have nothing to live on. When I explained our plan to our pastor’s wife recently, she shared that the special needs daughter of a friend of hers, had done just that.
We also wanted to make sure that the educational goals of our other children would be met. We currently have adult children attending college, as well as a minor attending college. Most wills refer to college expenses for children who are 18; our son is 14 and attending college and we want him to attend until he has his PhD if he desires.
Your Last Will and Testament can be as flexible as you need it to be for your family. Make a list before you go to see your lawyer about how you want the special circumstances in your family to be handled. We forgot to do this, so it took three meetings with our lawyer before all the details were ironed out.
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