The Living Trust Advisor

CHAPTER 21 Who Are Your Grandchildren? Or, Do You Really Want Your Living Trust Assets to Ultimately Wind Up with Your Son’s Second Wife’s Kids from Her First Marriage?

We live in a soap opera world of multiple marriages, multiple divorces, domestic partnerships, same-sex unions, long-term relationships, and commitment ceremonies. We have wives, husbands, ex-spouses, lovers, significant others, partners, girlfriends, boyfriends, and cohabitants. All this sounds fine to me. Live and let live, as long as you don’t smoke. Your right to enjoy an activity or endeavor ends when it directly and adversely affects my right to breathe air devoid of poisons. The last time I checked, living an alternative lifestyle is not carcinogenic.

With all these different types of relationships and characterizations, you may no longer know who you consider to be a grandchild for inheritance purposes. This becomes fairly significant because you have, most likely, named your grandchildren as direct or backup beneficiaries in your Living Trust. For example:

• You have provided that a certain amount of cash will go to each grandchild who is living at the time of your death.
• You have provided that if a child is not living when you and your spouse are both dead, the deceased child’s children (your grandchildren) will step into the inheritance shoes of that deceased child.
• You have provided that if your child is living when you and your spouse are dead, your Living Trust assets are funneled to your child’s ...