My issue with this is I w*rked very hard for the stash their will inherit and I don't want it blown in a few days or weeks. I have a stepped trust that will dispense funds in increments after I reach the great beyond. They both get a chunk before I am cold and then 10% per year. I can't monitor them beyond the grave and don't intent to but I will try to protect them from overwhelming greed as much as possible.
As Dr. McCoy would say: "You're dead, Jim". We don't get to have any more "wants". At some point we should stop trying to protect them, too. We're supposed to raise them to have their own internal motivations & life skills, not external motivations imposed by wills or trustees.
It seems that the issue surrounding many estate plans is who gets to control the money. The implicit assumption is that the beneficiary is either unable or unwilling to control the money, or at least not able to do so to the standards of the dearly departed.
I can understand trusts for beneficiaries who aren't mentally capable of handling their assets or who would lose other income if their inheritance was not in a trust. But for everyone else who's achieved "consenting adult" status it would seem far better to spend the time, effort, & assets on training them how to handle their money than to spend money on having trustees attempt the same task.
Gotta know your beneficiaries, I guess, but if they haven't learned to manage their own money by age 30 then I doubt that a trust will improve their skills. A lot of documentary evidence has shown that trusts tend to encourage non-productive behavior in the beneficiaries, let alone the trustees.
If the beneficiary hasn't learned financial skills during our lives with them, then perhaps inheriting will be the motivation. (I don't see how inheriting a trust is "motivating", unless it's a short-term list of qualifications for the beneficiary to take it over.) Or maybe the waste of running through the inheritance will be the shock that scares them straight.
If people aren't willing to take these risks with their beneficiaries then perhaps the inheritance should consist of small bequests to the primary beneficiaries and the rest to charity.
"We chose a good friend to manage that trust." "It goes into a trust with a very trusted relative ..." i too did that. first, the secondary trustee died; second, the primary trustee died. (third, the primary beneficiary died.) i'm all out of trusted friends and relatives.
I'd never ask a good friend to be my executor, let alone my trustee.
If I was going make any type of control behind the grave it would be in the line of paying for a financial planning course, or a fee only financial advisers. Heck when I redo my will I am going to require my Nephew and Niece visit this board before they make any investments
That'll be a couple of interesting "Hi, I am..." posts. And tell them that 6000+ trustees can't all be wrong!
When our kid turns 18 she's going to end up the executrix and the beneficiary... assuming we have anything to bequeath. I hope she's been paying attention to the family financial discussions, because this will be one heck of a final exam.