Can Trusts Be a Target of Financial Crime?
Sometimes estate planning lawyers assure you, with an utterly serious expression, that by putting your money in a trust, you will be keeping your assets safe and, by extension, keeping their beneficiaries safe. A trust can protect your assets from creditor claims during probate, even if you spend the last years of your life as a Medicaid nursing home care beneficiary. Since the assets in the trust do not become part of your estate, then your estate does not have to pay taxes on them. Meanwhile, financial planners who pride themselves on bending the rules for your benefit and their own will tell a different story about trusts. They will tell you of how trusts can cover your tracks even better than shell corporations can. With a gleam in your eye, they will tell you that trust assets belong to the trust and not to you, and therefore, if your spouse finds out about your lies and files for divorce, the trust assets will not be subject to equitable distribution; you might not even have to disclose them in the prenuptial agreement in your next marriage. Despite the financial planners who are willing to feed people’s fantasies of getting rich the wrong way, trusts are usually an above-board manner. If trustees go rogue and spend the trust assets in a manner contrary to the terms of the trust instrument, the beneficiaries have the right to seek compensation. If you are a grantor, trustee, or beneficiary of a trust that is the subject of a dispute, contact a Dade City estate planning lawyer.
When Trustees Breach Your Trust
Problems can arise when grantors appoint family members as the trustees of their trusts, even though it is legal for them to do so. At worst, the trust can become a venue for decades old family feuds, just like a probate case can. Therefore, it is wise to designate a lawyer or law firm as the trustee of your trust. The trustee does not have to be the same person as the lawyer who helped you draft the trust instrument; this is known as separation of powers in trust law.
A Lake Wales lawyer is being charged with grand theft after he allegedly transferred funds out of a trust for which he was the trustee into his personal accounts. Police arrested him at the Hard Rock Casino in Broward County after the beneficiaries of the trust, the grantor’s son and daughter, told police that the lawyer had traveled to Pennsylvania to confess to them what had happened to the money in their late father’s trust. The lawyer told the beneficiaries that he had a gambling addiction and that he had withdrawn money from the trust after he had gambled away his own assets.
Contact a Florida Estate Planning Attorney About Avoiding Trouble With Trusts
An estate planning attorney can help you make wise choices about your trust instrument, including your choice of trustee. Contact The Law Office of Laurie R. Chane in Dade City, Florida to discuss your case.
Source:
weartv.com/news/local/florida-lawyer-accused-of-stealing-17-million-from-clients-gambling-the-money-at-casino
