You can create your estate plan in such a way that you control when a person gets their inheritance. If you would like, it is possible to delay this distribution for some time after your death. For example, say that your estate plan includes a beneficiary who is 18 years old and in college. Legally, they are an adult, so you could name them in your will, and they would receive the inheritance during probate.
However, you may be concerned about leaving a large sum of money to someone at such a young age. Will they use it responsibly or just spend all of the money, rather than saving it for a later time in their life when it could be more beneficial? To delay when they receive it, you can put the money into a trust.
Setting up age-based distributions
When you add assets to a trust, the trust owns them. You name the beneficiary of the trust who will receive the assets and a trustee who is responsible for administering the trust.
You can provide instructions on when to make those distributions. For example, you could say that the beneficiary is to receive 10% of the money at age 21, another 40% at age 25, and the final 50% at age 30. This is just one example, of course, as you can choose the percentages and ages that you think will work best for the beneficiary.
These age-based distributions mean that they get the money at a time in their life when they should have more financial knowledge and experience managing money. You may believe they will then be more likely to use the money for beneficial purchases, like buying a family home, starting a business, paying childcare expenses and the like.
Taking control with your estate plan
As you can see, there are ways you can use your estate plan to have more control over how assets are passed down. You just need to know exactly what legal options you have while creating your plan. Having experienced estate planning guidance can help you make and implement the best choices for your loved ones.