The Benefits of Setting Up a New Hampshire Trust

Proper estate and trust planning remains one of the most important things you can do to care for your family after you are gone. The attorneys at Ward Law Group are focused on helping individuals and families protect the assets for which they have worked so hard. In many cases, setting up a trust in New Hampshire can be a wise estate planning step.

What is a New Hampshire Trust?

A trust is a legal entity that is controlled by a written trust agreement. When setting up your trust, you can choose the terms of the trust, including how you would like the administration of the trust to happen. After you create the trust, you put your property and assets into the trust.

The Maker or Grantor of the trust is the person who creates the trust. The beneficiaries of a New Hampshire trust are the people who will benefit from the assets in the trust. Finally, the trustee is a designated person or persons who makes sure the trust agreement provisions are fulfilled. When setting up your trust, you can name yourself as a trustee, or you can choose multiple trustees. You can also set up your trust so that when the original trustee dies, successor trustees will take over.

What are the Benefits of an Irrevocable Trust in New Hampshire?

In an irrevocable trust, the maker of the trust gives up control of the trust to another person or persons. Certain circumstances warrant modifying an irrevocable trust in spite of its name. For example, someone can “decant” their trust by transferring some assets from one trust into a new trust to benefit the trust beneficiaries. If the trust agreement allows the trustee to modify or terminate an irrevocable trust, he or she can do so. This process enables the modernization of old trust funds.

New Hampshire does not protect assets in an irrevocable trust from creditors when the trust maker names himself as a trust beneficiary. Thus, some New Hampshire residents do not name themselves as trust beneficiaries in their irrevocable trust. That way, creditors cannot touch the assets placed in their irrevocable trust.

It is important to note that once you place your assets into an irrevocable trust, the trust owns your assets, not you. As mentioned above, this works well if you’d like to prevent creditors from taking your assets. Irrevocable trusts have other benefits to include minimizing tax liability, making charitable donations, avoiding probate, or providing for a person with special needs.

New Hampshire estate planning law is somewhat unique in that you can add a non-human as the trust beneficiary. Thus, you could name a scholarship program, the care of a pet, the maintenance of real estate or vacation property as the trust beneficiary.

If You Need to Set Up or Modify a Trust in New Hampshire, We are Here to Help

The attorneys at Ward Law Group have years of experience in estate planning. We are here to use our expertise to help you set up the best Manchester estate plan possible. Contact us to set up your initial consultation.