WHAT IS A TRUST?

I’m sure I don’t have to tell you that trust is a beautiful, delicate thing.  It is built, brick by brick, interaction by interaction, into a foundation strong enough to hold higher levels of interactions in the future but, like a Jenga game, one poor decision can cause it all to come crashing down.

That’s trust and it is definitely related to what you are doing when you enter into a “trust agreement,”  but it isn’t the whole story.

But first, a little background:

YEA! I FINALLY HAVE A TRUST! AM I DONE?

According to several polls less than half of Americans have an estate plan so congratulations on getting the first step done.  Putting your affairs in order is a very loving thing for you to do for your heirs and yourself (in the case of your incapacity) and I want to encourage you to finish the job.  Hopefully you went to a qualified attorney instead of some trust mill, but either way the chances that you are done are, unfortunately, slim.  If you have a revocable living trust-based estate plan (as opposed to a will-based estate plan) then what you have paid for is a (hopefully) beautiful (hopefully) complete intention.  Acting on that intention is the next step.

I MARRIED MY DOMESTIC PARTNER! WHAT HAPPENS TO THAT OLD AGREEMENT?

Back in the dark ages (last spring), many gay and lesbian couples in California entered into domestic partnership agreements as a way to confirm their promises to each other because they did not have the right to marry.  A marriage is basically a three way agreement between the government and the couple that includes all sorts of statutory rights and obligations the starry-eyed lovers may or may not be aware of.  A domestic partnership agreement, however, is similar to a pre-marital agreement in that it is completely individualized to the particular couple involved.  (My post on pre-marital agreements is called “Do I need a pre-marital agreement if I love my fiancé?”)

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