When it comes to establishing a trust for your minor children in the state of New Mexico, this is one of the most important things you can do for them. It establishes the ability to safely and securely split your assets between your children, without it being so up in the air after dealing with your passing.
Trust vs. Will
You may be wondering what the difference between a trust and a will is. The difference between the two is actually very important. A will says where certain assets are to go, but not necessarily HOW the beneficiaries can utilize those assets. A trust, on the other hand, puts forth very specific guidelines for how the assets can be used.
Trusts are the ideal thing to set up, especially when dealing with minor children. Now, if you were to pass away and your children were under the age of 18, the trust would be placed into the care of a court-appointed representative, until the children reach the age of 18, at which point the law does require that anything that was entrusted to them is turned over at that time.
The other benefit of trusts is that you can set benchmarks for when the assets can be used, such as instead of the benefits being received at the age of 18, the benefits are held until they turn 24.
Benefits of A Trust with Minor Children.
When speaking about setting up a trust, multiple benefits do go into that. If you were to pass away, while you have children under the age of 18 and you don’t have a will or trust in place the state does step in and does assign an individual to control the assets until they are the age of 18 and once they do receive what assets were to be provided to them, there are no real restrictions in place to say how the money can or cannot be utilized. With a trust, you can set specific provisions in place that do say how the beneficiaries are allowed to utilize whatever assets they acquired after your passing and the benchmarks that can be established says when they can access those assets.
Benefits of A Will with Minor Children
Now, just like everything else in life, there are pros and cons to having a will. The pros being that you can say what you would like which of your children to have as part of your assets, at the time of your passing and that you can name someone to be the executor of your will, in the event of your passing while still having minor children. Now, the cons to a will are that there are no set guidelines for how those assets should be used and if there is no executor, the state can step in and control the will until the beneficiary or beneficiaries of the will are of legal age, which in New Mexico is 18.
This video covers the pros of having a Trust established, when you do have minor children and how those assets can be protected until the benchmarks you set in the trust are met and why the trust you establish is such a vital document to safeguard your assets and your minor children’s futures.
