People in Georgia who have trusts as part of their estate plan may want to periodically review those trusts to make sure they still fulfill their intended purpose. There are several reasons a trust may no longer work for an individual. One is that the trust was never created property in the first place. This can happen if an attorney does not understand a family’s wishes and needs.
Another reason could be that the trust is written a way that leaves its intention unclear. In other circumstances, the trust might have been fine as originally written, but circumstances may have changed to make it no longer useful. It is also possible that the laws have changed so that the trust’s original purpose can be better fulfilled using a different strategy or vehicle.
A person might also review the trust and be unhappy with it because it does not achieve its intended purpose, such as leaving distributions to family members. Another problem could be that the trust’s governance structure is ineffective. Finally, the trust may not be effective in terms of taxes.
Trusts should also be reviewed regularly to make sure they are consistent with the rest of the estate plan. For example, if a trust is in conflict with a beneficiary designation, the beneficiary designation would override the trust. In some cases, a trust may have been set up for reasons that are no longer valid. For example, a person may have been concerned about a younger relative receiving a large inheritance all at once and appointed a trustee to manage distributions, but that relative might be older and more mature one or two decades later, and a different arrangement might be more appropriate. In some cases, trusts were created when estate tax exemptions were much lower, and there may be better ways to manage assets under new laws.
