If you want your family wealth to stretch across several generations and benefit them, it is important to do your estate planning right. You need to ensure that assets are protected from third parties and kept within the family tree. In such a case, having a simple will is not enough. You need to do more.
Since a will passes the ownership of an asset or property to the beneficiaries, they can do as they please, including selling them to third parties. It means that the family wealth is not likely to trickle down to future generations. Here is what you can do to avoid that.
Put your assets and property in a trust
Having your assets in a living trust is one way of going about it. Once you are gone, the trust will become irrevocable, meaning that the trust must be executed per your terms and conditions. Your heirs will still benefit from the assets or property in such a case, but they will not have legal ownership. It will therefore be impossible for these assets to be dissipated, sold or split up in a divorce.
In addition, having the family assets and property will protect them from creditors if your beneficiaries default on their debts. That can help prevent your heirs from suffering from sudden financial misfortune.
There are different kinds of trust
The beauty of trusts is that you can tailor them to your needs. You can have trusts that specify how the proceeds will be used and by who. For example, you can have trusts set up purely to fund the education of beneficiaries.
It can be a useful way of achieving your end objectives, especially when you want to preserve the family wealth for decades to come.