A trust in Boone County, Missouri is a legal arrangement for the management of property by one individual, 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 individual, who benefits from the property.

You might want to set up a trust for a wide number of reasons. It can be set up to guarantee that a child will have money for college, for instance, 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 instance, 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 implement 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 quickly spend all the money on some pretty frivolous stuff.

What to Include in Any Boone County, MO Trust

There are 4 distinct elements that must be present for any trust to be legitimate in Boone County, Missouri. The first element is the purpose - in drafting a trust document, the purpose that the trust is serving must be expressed.

Second, every trust, to be valid, has to assign a trustee. This is the individual or other entity (such as a corporation) who oversees the property that embodies the trust. They possess and control the property, and are accountable for seeing that it is utilized according to the purpose of the trust.

The third element is a beneficiary. The beneficiary is a person or entity who the trust is created to benefit. Although a beneficiary has to be named, they don't truly have to exist at the time the trust is written. For example, if a person sets up a trust to benefit his or her grandchildren, and doesn't yet have any, the trust is valid. If and when their grandchildren are born, the rights that the trust creates will vest in them immediately.

Lastly, and perhaps most notably, the trust requires a "body." The body of a trust is the thing (typically, but not always, money) that is directly being held in trust, and therefore overseen by the trustee, and utilized to help the beneficiary.

Can A Boone County, Missouri Trust Drafting Attorney Help?

While the elements of a valid trust are fairly simple and easy to memorize, drafting a trust that is likely to be carried out according to your wishes can be fairly perplexing. For that reason, a Boone County, Missouri attorney experienced in estate planning can be invaluable.