We live in California and the living trust was created using legal software, not by a lawyer. The trust was created using California as state of domicile.
I have married for 10 years to my husband with a 2-yr-old and and another on the way. Back in August, 2006, we set up a living revocable trust with our then only child as the sole beneficiary with right of representation. We chose to have my mother as the first successor trustee with his father as the 'backup' trustee if my mother was either deceased or incapacitated or could otherwise not take on the responsibility. We further specified that the trust property be distributed to our daughter when she turned 25 or upon her marriage, whichever was sooner.
We are now expecting a second child, due to be born in Sept, 2007. The question I now have is - we'd naturally like to modify both our will and our living trust to include our second child. I know that the new will would naturally override the earlier but I am not so sure about how to make modifications to the living trust to allow our younger child to jointly inherit the assets with her older sister.
Also, would our daughters incur any estate tax when they each turn 25 or upon their marriage and become eligible to claim their respective inheritances? At this point of time, our biggest assets are a $550,000 home and life insurance death payouts - it's a $500,000 for me and another $500,000 for him, so the trust would have a total of $1,550,000 should we both die before they turn 25.
Any advice would be gratefully accepted. Also, we created the living trust document using legal software, so it's not as if we have an attorney to help us with questions
Thank you.
I have married for 10 years to my husband with a 2-yr-old and and another on the way. Back in August, 2006, we set up a living revocable trust with our then only child as the sole beneficiary with right of representation. We chose to have my mother as the first successor trustee with his father as the 'backup' trustee if my mother was either deceased or incapacitated or could otherwise not take on the responsibility. We further specified that the trust property be distributed to our daughter when she turned 25 or upon her marriage, whichever was sooner.
We are now expecting a second child, due to be born in Sept, 2007. The question I now have is - we'd naturally like to modify both our will and our living trust to include our second child. I know that the new will would naturally override the earlier but I am not so sure about how to make modifications to the living trust to allow our younger child to jointly inherit the assets with her older sister.
Also, would our daughters incur any estate tax when they each turn 25 or upon their marriage and become eligible to claim their respective inheritances? At this point of time, our biggest assets are a $550,000 home and life insurance death payouts - it's a $500,000 for me and another $500,000 for him, so the trust would have a total of $1,550,000 should we both die before they turn 25.
Any advice would be gratefully accepted. Also, we created the living trust document using legal software, so it's not as if we have an attorney to help us with questions
Thank you.
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