Estate planning is more than just planning to avoid probate. You can also develop a very specific plan for the distribution of your assets. In the series of blog posts entitled “Distribution Planning”, we will discuss the different options of distributing your assets and the pros/cons of each one.
The first part of this series discusses “Common Pot Trusts”.
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The Common Pot Trust takes this concept of spending for your minor children as needed and applies it to your trustees. Instead of your will or trust passing your estate into separate, equally funded trusts for each child, the whole “pot”, is combined into one trust that benefits all the children together until they all reach adulthood.
If both parents are tragically gone during their children’s minority, then the trustee (the person overseeing and dispensing money from the “pot”) is directed to spend as if he or she is like a surrogate parent – he or she spends money on the kids in the same way that the parents would if they were alive.
See Scott R. Zucker, Esq. , Common “Pot” Trusts – Why You Shouldn’t Treat Your Children Equally, estateplanninginfoblog.com, July 23, 2018.