In the 2006 comedy film Failure to Launch, Matthew McConaughey plays a 35-year-old bachelor still living at home with his parents, who eventually hire an “interventionist” to help him “launch.” Often in real life, however, the Failure to Launch child never achieves personal or financial independence, remains in the parental home into adulthood, or lives nearby as a subject of mom’s “outpatient financial care.” and dad. Incidentally, after remaining a constant fixture in his parents’ lives, the Miss Launch child ends up being named successor trustee of the family living trust!
A living trust is the way many families today organize their estate. The person you designate as your successor trustee has considerable responsibilities and has the highest civil duty and standard of care recognized by law: fiduciary duty. “Noty honest alone, but the point of an honor is the most sensitive” is how Judge Benjamin Cardozzo famously described this responsibility. In light of this duty, your successor trustee must be someone you can trust and who is capable of managing your trust responsibly.
Often times, the Miss-To-cast child feels entitled to the majority of the inheritance because they stayed close to the parents, never starting a family of their own. To complicate matters, the son of Failure to Launch may be the firstborn in the family, giving rise to a ‘primogeniture’ complex: the first to inherit the entire property and magnanimously care for younger siblings as he sees fit. seem.
Parents establish a living trust to avoid probate. However, under this scenario, the child with the least amount of financial acumen, the child accused of being the main object of her parents’ financial affection, is left in charge. Ironically, the estate then becomes the subject of a contested probate action, longer and more expensive than it ever would have been if the parents had not bothered to execute an estate plan in the first place.
Trust litigation has skyrocketed in volume in recent years. New World Estate Planning Lawyer helps clients plan their estate based on lessons learned in court. Unfortunately, estate planning is postponed and living trusts are downloaded from the internet as one size fits all. Perhaps worst of all, the successor trustee is often the child closest to the parents as a result of being the least responsible of his siblings: a Miss Launch. Therefore, careful and qualitative planning and the assistance of highly credentialed legal counsel is strongly recommended.