Protecting Your Financial Future Through Trusts
Trusts are vital parts of estate planning. They can secure your financial resources and protect them from creditors, simplify asset distribution and allow your loved ones to avoid the probate process.
At the Baton Rouge, Louisiana, law firm of Carleton Dunlap Olinde Moore & Bohman, L.L.C., we have experience with all aspects of trust development, maintenance and administration. We draft and review trusts that meet our clients' goals for their financial resources. We also have experience acting as trustees and advisors to trustees.
Our extensive experience with simple and complex trusts allows us to think creatively to develop or administer a trust based on your financial needs and wishes.
Trust Options
In a trust, a grantor (the person with the assets) determines who should receive his or her money (the beneficiaries) and who (the trustee) should make sure the money goes to the proper beneficiaries at the proper time.
There are a large number of trust possibilities that are significantly different in the way they affect taxes, grantor control and the beneficiaries. Our attorneys are committed to finding the right trust for you and arranging it in a practical way for your financial goals. Possible trusts include:
- Revocable trusts: these trusts allow the trust grantor to change or revoke the trust during their lifetime.
- Irrevocable trusts: these trusts cannot be revoked, but they offer tax benefits.
- Living trusts: Also called inter vivos trusts, these trusts are created for you, the trustor, to help properly administer your assets and lead to quick asset distribution upon your passing.
Trusts can also be used to pledge money to a charity (charitable trusts), protect your money from a beneficiary's bad spending habits, reduce tax liabilities, protect life insurance (insurance trusts) and protect assets for future generations (generation skipping trusts).
Complex Trusts
Our law firm has handled trusts that involve class actions, large and diverse beneficiary pools, extensive assets, bankruptcy and other complicating factors.
One of our complex trusts involved our attorneys acting as trustees to administer a trust that was no longer practical. We petitioned the court for authority to move outside of the four corners of the trust document. Through creativity and collaboration with the other attorneys and the judge, we were able to successfully administer the trust.
Contact Carleton Dunlap Olinde Moore & Bohman, L.L.C.
To schedule a free initial consultation with the wills and trusts lawyers at Carleton Dunlap Olinde Moore & Bohman, L.L.C., call our Baton Rouge law office at 225-282-0600 or complete our online intake form.
