Houston Estate Planning and Elder Law Attorney Blog
We often hear about families who squander fortune; we hear less about families that preserve their wealth and values over generations.
Successful entrepreneurs often struggle with estate planning when it comes to their children. Will knowledge of large inheritances to come create spoiled and unmotivated adults? How can wealth be shared across generations while fostering family values that include a strong work ethic and service to others? In a recent article appearing in Forbes, “The Successful Entrepreneur's Guide to Leaving a Financial Legacy That Won't Spoil Your Kids,” one family’s solution of passing along wealth and empowering generations of children is presented.
The family is one of the richest families in history: The Rockefellers. Their fortune is still going strong today—six generations later. They maintained their fortune by creating trusts to protect the family wealth. Trusts can have specific rules for determining how and when heirs are allowed to access money. This is the key to giving your children access to funds without eliminating their potential to achieve success on their own. Many times entrepreneurs fear leaving their children a large sum of money, but a trust lets you attach some strings.
You can’t do this with a generic trust formed with standard legal documents, but if you hire a qualified Houston estate planning attorney, you can customize a trust to personify your wisdom and values.
A trust is also a great way to pass on your wisdom, knowledge, and experience to the generations that follow. The document can include a Statement of Purpose, which is your life philosophy. This can be reread and utilized for generations to come. This is how you leave a strong financial legacy to your kids.
Creating an estate plan that centers on a financial legacy trust does far more than simply create a trust fund. Working closely with an experienced Houston estate planning attorney, you can create a lasting financial legacy that will enhance the next generation by teaching them values that emphasize their responsibilities to protect, preserve and perpetuate the family’s wealth.
Reference: Forbes (June 27, 2016) “The Successful Entrepreneur's Guide to Leaving a Financial Legacy That Won't Spoil Your Kids”