A trust in Farmington, Missouri is an arrangement under which property is possessed by one person, but used exclusively for the benefit of, and legally owned by, another.

Trusts serve a variety of purposes. For instance, they can be set up to ensure that the beneficiary (say, a child) will always have enough money to live off of, but will be unable to spend it all on frivolities.

If you want to set up a trust, you can make the beneficiary's use of the property as restricted or as permissive as you like. As a simple instance, you might want to dictate that the beneficiary can only use the money for emergencies, or for general living expenses. If the trust is thoroughly drafted, this is totally feasible.

If you want, you could formulate 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 Farmington, MO Trust

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

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 accountable for putting it to the use that the creator of the trust intended.

The third required element to make a valid trust is the beneficiary or beneficiaries. Because a trust, by definition, is set up to benefit someone or something, that entity must be identified in the trust. Nonetheless, if the person(s) meant to benefit from the trust do not yet exist, they can still be legitimate beneficiaries, as long as they are part of an identifiable class of people, and can be easily identified if they are born. For instance, you could set up a trust to benefit your grandchildren, even if you don't actually have any grandchildren yet.

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

Can A Farmington, Missouri Trust Drafting Attorney Help?

While its' easy to list the basic elements that need to be present for a trust to be valid, the actual process of setting up a trust can be a little perplexing. For that reason, seeking the counsel of a reputable Farmington, Missouri attorney to help you set up a trust is probably a good idea.