Clearly Queen Elizabeth II counts as a celeb estate, right!? Seeing this article got me thinking that we should talk about: Estate planning, Royal Family, celeb estates and what you can learn? This article is very interesting for several different things but most notably is the question of when should your children, or other beneficiaries, have access to the bulk of assets that you live them?
I have seen every facet of option in estate plans over the past 30 years! I have had clients say “give it to them at 30” and I have had clients say “my child will never be responsible enough to have control over our money!” I thus have written estate plans, and seen many written by others, and they have a variety of ages when the child gets access to the most of the money. To be clear, the money is available to help with their basic necessities if you die when they are under 18 or still in high school. That’s standard and I can’t think of anybody, who wanted to benefit their children, that didn’t allow for this. The question is when should they get control?
The most common plan I have seen over the years is some sort of division. That is, something like 1/2 at 21 and 1/2 at 25. Or even 21, 25, and 30. Of course I have seen just about every age and/or ages used over the years. This basic planning is good but it begs some questions. 1) Are you assuming they’ll blow the first half at 18? 2) If they did blow the first half at 18 are they really going to be responsible at 25 or 30? You can insert your own questions as I think this basic plan raises more questions than answers and is generally not what I advised over the years of working with estate planning clients.
When I was a new attorney, at age 26, I thought 30 was a good age to give the assets to your kids. As I approached 30 I raised that number to 35. As I got into my early 30’s, I started to think that 40 was better. Yes, I was considering my own maturity and what I saw in my peers. By the time I approached 40 I started to determine if a kid isn’t responsible by 40 they never will be!
Taking the above into account I really liked the idea of an older age before making a child the trustee. To me, there is simply no reason to make a 21 year old in charge of their own money after you die or YOUR MONEY while you are still alive but incapacitated. The average 21 year old, or 25 year old, just doesn’t have the life experience to handle large sums of money. As I explained to many clients over the years if a young adult is making $50k a year all of a sudden is in charge of one million or more… are they really ready for that? Do they know about budgeting? Do they know about investments? Are they likely to fall for investment scams? The list goes on! Think of all the professional athletes who have been taken advantage of!
I think Queen Elizabeth, II set things up right by choosing age 40. Undoubtedly there is way more to the estate plan than this article lays out but I like age 40. Hopefully my kids won’t see this since they have a long way to go until they turn 40! 
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