What is a Marital Trust Agreement in Estate Planning? - YouTube

Well greetings from Bill O'Leary coming to  you today to answer a very specific question:  

What is a Marital Trust Agreement in Estate  Planning? So in this video you're going to learn:  

What a Marital Trust Agreement is, the purpose it  serves and why someone would put a Marital Trust  

in place. First quick intro of myself Bill O'Leary  here I'm an attorney here in Jacksonville Florida,  

my firm is Legacy Planning Law Group and we just  focus on a few specific areas: Estate Planning,  

Elder Law and Probate and Trust Administration.  So what is a Marital Trust agreement? Well as is  

obvious from the name it's a Trust that's put  together by folks who were married, that's why  

it's called a Marital Trust and as you might  imagine it's very common for a married couple;  

let's say to want everything to go to the  surviving spouse at the first spouse's death  

fair enough so far so good and many couples  frankly are just fine with everything going  

to the surviving spouse directly and outright  this is the easiest way to do it for sure.  

This means though that the surviving spouse has  complete control over all of the assets he or  

she can do anything that they want with the money.  Well this works just fine when the couple is, is  

okay with the surviving spouse having unrestricted  access to the money after the first spouse dies  

but what would happen to the money if the  surviving spouse is let's say not good with money,  

what if they're not the most astute in financial  matters, what if giving everything out right to  

the surviving spouse would run the risk that  everything would be spent in short order,  

is there a way to prevent this from happening,  yes there is. Instead of giving everything to  

the surviving spouse directly just as an outright  distribution, the married couple they can create  

a set of think of them as guard rails to  protect the money you know think of it as  

maybe creating a lock box for the surviving  spouse. The lock box would hold the money,  

the money in the lock box would be there to take  care of the surviving spouse but the spouse would  

not have unfettered access to the money. This lock  box it's called a Trust and it's given a special  

name called a Marital Trust and Marital Trust is  an Irrevocable Trust that is designed to benefit  

the surviving spouse by the way the surviving  spouse can be the trustee or you can make someone  

else the trustee or maybe you make a combination  of both as co-trustees and then when the surviving  

spouse dies, what is left in the Trust will  go to other beneficiaries usually children.  

There are some other reasons for implementing a  Marital Trust besides simply where the surviving  

spouse is not good with money. For example  a Marital Trust can be used to prevent undue  

influence this usually is a concern let's say for  older couples where maybe the surviving spouse may  

be in declining health and there's a concern they  may be susceptible to being taken advantage of.  

Another situation where Marital Trust is often  used is in a second marriage situation where  

let's say one or both spouses have children from  a prior marriage, imagine the first spouse to die  

has children from a previous marriage  and he or she wants to make sure that  

their kids get an inheritance at some point in the  future, say after the surviving spouse dies right  

so giving everything out right to the surviving  spouse well that would run the risk that their  

kids the first spouse to die their kids get cut  out because the surviving spouse ends up changing  

the plan after the first death. Having a Marital  Trust on the other hand for the surviving spouse  

ensures this can't happen. So a Marital Trust, yes  it will be there to benefit the surviving spouse  

they won't be wanting for their needs be there for  their lifetime but what is left in the Trust will  

go back to the children from the prior marriage  and a Marital Trust can also be used as part of  

a Estate Tax Planning, let's say where the married  couple has a large enough Estate where they need  

to minimize taxes so here Marital Trust is often  used with another type of Irrevocable Trust called  

a Bypass Trust, this more complicated form of  Estate Planning is typically what we call an AB  

Trust, AB Trust. So hey if you'd like to know more  about: What a Marital Trust Agreement and Estate  

Planning is all about and maybe how we can help  you, we would love to start a conversation with  

you, love to talk to you. We encourage you to go  ahead and schedule a free 15-minute phone call,  

really easy to do, we call it our DISCOVERY  PHONE CALL by going to our booking calendar,  

you can get there by going to the link at the  bottom of this video, the scheduling link or going  

to our website and hitting on the BOOK YOUR FREE  CALL button it takes you to our booking calendar,  

just pick a day and time that works for you. So  this is Bill O'Leary signing off for today and  

on behalf of everybody here at Team Legacy  go make it a great day in a better world.