Harvey D. Shapiro
11/01/2004
Second marriages of individuals with young children involve particularly complex estate planning challenges. Children cannot take control of an inheritance until they come of age. A trustee must oversee their patrimony until they turn 18 or 21, depending on state law—or reach a more advanced age, as specified in some trust agreements. In the case of severely handicapped children, we may need a trustee to serve as long as the child lives.
The selection of an appropriate trustee for a minor needs careful consideration. Family members have the advantage of knowing the children; they may have an abiding interest in their well-being. But we must make certain that this is their sole interest. If, for example, we appoint our son from our first marriage as trustee for the children we have with our second wife, he may resent his new charges and not treat them fairly. A more independent trustee may be better suited, says Dominic Campisi, a partner at Evans, Latham & Campisi in San Francisco.
A family attorney or other professional advisor may be more dispassionate. However, the advisor should be young enough to, for example, supervise a trust for our 4-year-old daughter until she reaches 21. Unlike an individual trustee, a trust company never ages or retires, but a stranger might suddenly replace the individual we chose to oversee our children based on the whims of the firm’s executives.
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