Reply to How to ensure my kids inherit my money if my husband remarried and died?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][b]Put all of your share of the assets into a trust[/b].  You leave directions on how you want your trust allocated.  You may choose to make provisions for your husband AND your children.  As opposed to giving it all to him and you don't know what he or his next wife will do.[/quote]

How specific does this need to get? In our case, outside of retirement accounts and primary residence, we have about $4.5, most of which is in DH's name or the name, say $4M. How would I identify my share? A generic 'half of all accounts' type language or do I have to liquidate or transfer specific assets (that are currently in DH's name) into the newly created Trust? How will this be accomplished without pissing off DH assuming he's not in agreement? I can see this being worth it if you have 10s of millions (in which case the other spouse may actually think it's a good idea and the costs may be worth it) or the money was inherited by one of the parties.[/quote]

[b]Not sure you understand.[/b] Your trust can have whatever language you want. But you actually have to retitle the account or asset into the trust either during your lifetime or by beneficiary designation. Otherwise the trust is just a pretty piece of ineffective paper. It’s not about specifying specific accounts as much as shares of your overall trust. And it’s up to you to make sure your trust eventually holds all of the assets you think it should.

This is really complicated stuff that involves an estate planning attorney and, if one is in the picture, a financial planner or asset manager.[/quote]

I do, hence my questions. If the assets need to be re-titled in the name of the Trust, how will you do that without your spouse's consent, especially if they are not completely on board? In my case, $4M sits in spouse's name, $500K is in my name (we have revocable trusts and some of these assets are titled in that trust's name and the ones that aren't have the trust named as beneficiary). How will I convince DH to transfer over $1.5+ to my name so I can title it to a Trust which he won't have full control over? His pushback would be that he earned most of that money during our married life and while I'm entitled to half of it in case of a divorce, i sure am not entitled to decide how it gets spend if I predecease him, which i think is fair. 
Unless you have been earning an equal amount, been saving it in your name equally, and have enough money between the two of you that losing control over one half won't impact the other spouse's lifestyle, this will not be an easy endeavor.[/quote]

You're exactly right.  You would almost certainly need your spouse's consent to start retitling/segregating/splitting joint assets amongst two separate trusts.  You certainly wouldn't need his consent to retitle an asset that you own in your own name.

So for most couples, unless there are substantial non-retirement assets in each spouse's separate names, estate planning will be a joint endeavor requiring shared goals and objectives.  And if your spouse won't cooperate, don't forget, it's not just your money.

I've seen some very nasty fights in consultations and hurtful things said that I'm sure only got nastier as soon as they left my office.

Signed,
Estate Planning Attorney[/quote]

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