When making an estate plan, you may have a beneficiary that you want to leave a significant inheritance to, but you feel that it is not the right time. It would be better if you could delay it until they were a bit older.
For example, perhaps you have a child who is 21 years old. You certainly want to leave them an inheritance, but you are also conscious of the fact that they are still a college student. If they received that money right now, they might spend it on frivolous purchases, and the inheritance could be gone long before they would be at the stage in life where they might use it on something important, such as starting a business or putting a down payment on a family home. So is there anything you can do to delay when they receive it?
Putting the money in a trust
The good news is that you can take control of when they get their inheritance. All you need to do is put the money into a trust and stipulate that they can only receive it when they reach a certain age. You then pick a trustee who will administer these distributions.
In fact, you could choose multiple ages. For instance, maybe you want to give them 10% of their inheritance immediately, which will still be useful for them at 21 years old. But you want to give them the next 40% when they turn 25 and then the final 50% when they turn 30. This spreads the inheritance out so they can use it at multiple stages in their life.
This is just one example of how you can use a trust as part of your estate plan. Be sure you know what legal steps to take to set everything up correctly.