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December 2010 Moms
lrn327
member
** kj07 ** - Re: Will
lrn327
member
I saw your response on Parenting about setting up a guardian for your child's trust and a separate person for care for the child. We're just finishing our wills up today actually and while I feel pretty comfortable naming my ILs for physical care, I have some reservations about naming them guardians over the funds. If I had to trust anyone to do that, it would actually be my stepmom. I don't have a separate trust (just the standard UTMA) and I'm very anxious about my ILs past money history. I kinda feel like if times got tight, they may not make some of the best decisions. I know you're not an expert or anything, but you sounded as if you had some experience with this. If I named my stepmom as guardian of the UTMA then would that make it overly complicated for my ILs to use the money? TIA and anyone else feel free to chime in.
This discussion has been closed.
Re: ** kj07 ** - Re: Will
Sorry to butt in-but we did the same thing.
My parents will get O if anything happened to H and I at the same time, however MIL is a financial planner and already handles all of our money, so we have asked her to maintain the trust. Our wishes are very detailed, but it basically outlines how much we want given to my parents each month for O's care. Any expenses outside of this monthly allowance-if he wanted to travel abroad, or something like that, would have to be decided by my parents and MIL together. It also sets out visitation for MIL so she stays in O's life and talks about the holiday split.
My parents and MIL are only about 20 minutes from each other so this was really easy for us. I love my parents and have zero doubt about their ability to make good decisions, but this was a way for us to involve both sets of parents and avoid hurt feelings.
Also, our will states that O will not be given full access to the funds until he attains a Master's degree or turns 25-whichever comes first. It also stipulates that he has to have his Bachelor's degree at a minimum to gain access to the accounts. This basically gave us piece of mind that he would know what our priorities were for him even if we weren't around anymore.
I am sorry this got so long. HTH
No, thank you, this is helpful! I assume you used a lawyer to complete your docs? Is everything for O actually in a separate trust? I guess I panicked a bit because we don't have anything set up and I really don't want anyone fighting over C. So, we wanted to choose someone ourselves which is the ILs. I did quick versions through Nolo but want to sit down with someone (not sure who this is?) and see if we have enough life insurance, etc. and then have a lawyer read through our wills.
We used a lawyer to complete and notarize all of the documents.
My MIL is a financial planner/estate planner. So she has helped us tremendously in making sure our money is in the right place, we have the right amount of life insurance, disability insurance, etc. All of our money is not in a "trust"-meaning it is still spread out working for us everyday-but Oliver is named as a benificiary in the event that anything should happen to us simultaneously.
Here is where the legal mumbo-jumbo comes in-MIL is named as co-beneficiary in the event that O is not 25 at the time the accident occurs. This allows here to act as our estate executor without having to go through the local courts and petition for the right to access our accounts.
Hah, I'm not sure what advice I could add - it sounds like you (and especially mamaholmes) are further along than we are. We've talked about our wishes in spirit, but haven't gone through to set them down in a legal document.
The idea of having two different parties for physical custody and financial responsibility came up during a parent's meeting that our local hospital holds. From the discussion that we had there, it seems to be an idea that's implemented fairly often.
BFP #2 5/27/12. EDD 2/1/13. m/c and D&C 6/21/12.
My MIL was actually the one who suggested it to us. She and SFIL-while very involved in O's life, are both semi-retired and travel a lot of the time. We had spoken with them and with my parents about our decision and how we were struggling because they were both involved with O, both fininancially capable of caring for him, around the same age, all in great health, etc. She said, "well, we travel a lot and aren't home often, it might be better for O if he were somewhere that he didn't leave a lot but I would be happy to take care of the estate-less stress for your parents and it's kind of my thing anyway."
Love her.
After talking to our lawyer it is becoming the norm now-it protects everyone involved and is a lot less likely to be contested by the courts.
Thank you both immensely! MamaH, I think I love all of your parents!
I'm going to set ours up as stepmom over finances and ILs over C. I hope I never have to worry about this, but at least doing this now will put my mind at some ease. We're going to seek out a financial planner and make sure our coverage is up to speed too. We're coming up on open enrollment so it's a good time now. I'll have a lawyer review everything post as well. Thanks again ladies!