What are Trusts?

A trust is a legal relationship between people, dictating the distribution of assets between them. Trusts are most commonly used to separate assets from your Estate, offering them protection from creditors and stipulating how they are administered. Since Trusts are a separate legal entity from the Trust owner, they do not form part of the deceased’s Estate upon death. Thus, they are a great way to ensure the survival of your assets.

Aside from protecting your assets, Trusts come with a variety of different uses:

• The honouring of maintenance commitments in terms of a divorce orders and settlement agreements.
• Providing for disabled dependants and aged parents.
• Protecting and providing assets for following generations.
• Serving as a holding vehicle for assets as part of an estate planning structure.
• Providing a regular income for favourite charities and other PBO’s.
• Providing for the dependants of a deceased employee.

Examples of Trusts

Your children’s future

Every parent wants to see their children grow up to be successful and planning for future education is one of the best gifts you can give them. Your child will one day need to go to university and become an adult. The best way of ensuring their success is setting up a Trust fund which pays out when your child leaves school, to cover their university costs, and perhaps once they leave university: to cover their cost of living for a few years.

Divorce

You can set-up a trust to pay your former spouse on a month-to-month basis or lump sums yearly. You can include cost of living expenses and education expenses for your children as part of this too. Divorce is always unexpected and often comes with maintenance commitments to see your former spouse through a tough time in their lives: setting up a trust ensures that they are covered, with minimal risk and energy expended on your part.

Trusts have a variety of applications, exceeding those mentioned above- get in touch with us now and get your very own Trust!