In Houston, Texas, a trust is a setup under which property is possessed by one person or entity, to be used for the benefit of another.
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 be set up to authorize the beneficiary to access the money in it under any conditions the person making the trust wishes. For example, the trust could be set up so the beneficiary can only use the money in it for education.
If you want, you could establish 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 Houston, TX Trust
There are 4 things that have to be present in every trust for it to be valid in Houston, Texas. First, the trust must have a stated purpose. Whatever purpose you intend the trust to serve, you should make it extremely clear when drafting the document.
Second, the trust must also name a trustee. The trustee is the person who is really going to administer the trust, and has possession and control of the property while it is the subject of the trust.
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. However, if the person(s) meant to benefit from the trust do not yet exist, they can still be valid beneficiaries, as long as they are part of an identifiable class of people, and can be easily identified if they are born. For example, you could set up a trust to benefit your grandchildren, even if you don't really have any grandchildren yet.
Fourth and finally, there must be some money or property which is really going to be held in the trust. This property is referred to as the "corpus" (body) of the trust, and can be just about anything. However, it must really exist, and it must be identified.
Can A Houston, Texas 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 complex. For that reason, a Houston, Texas attorney specializing in estate planning can be invaluable.
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