A trust in Columbia, Missouri is a legal arrangement for the management of property by one person, for the benefit of another. In the simplest possible terms, if property is held in trust, it is possessed and controlled by one person, but it is technically owned by another person, who benefits from the property.

You might want to set up a trust for a wide variety of reasons. It can be set up to ensure that a child will have money for college, for example, and that the child will only be able to use the money for that purpose.

A trust can make as many or as few allowances as the person creating it wants. For example, a trust could be set up which permits the beneficiary to spend the money on educational expenses, and nothing else.

If you want, you could create a trust with no restrictions on how much money the trustee can spend from the trust, and let the beneficiary spend all the money on whatever they'd like. If this is what you want to do, that's fine- but if the beneficiary is a young adult with spendthrift habits, you obviously might want to take into consideration the fact that they could easily spend all the money on some pretty frivolous stuff.

What to Include in Any Columbia, MO Trust

There are 4 things that have to be present in every trust for it to be valid in Columbia, Missouri. First, the trust must have a stated purpose. Whatever purpose you intend the trust to serve, you should make it quite clear when drafting the document.

Second, the trust needs a trustee. The trustee will have possession of the property or money that is being held in trust, and will be responsible for putting it to the use that the creator of the trust intended.

Third, there must be a named beneficiary. This is the person, persons, or entity who is truly benefiting from the trust. This person or entity must be clearly identified, or must be identifiable at some point in the future that can be objectively defined.

Fourth and finally, the trust must include what is known as the "corpus" or "body." The corpus is the money and/or property which is being held in trust. For a trust to be valid, the corpus must be clearly identified.

Can A Columbia, Missouri Trust Drafting Attorney Help?

While it's fairly easy to list off the basic requirements for a valid trust, actually creating and implementing one can be fairly perplexing. Therefore, you should probably seek the assistance of a Columbia, Missouri attorney if you wish to set up a trust.