Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Indiana

Re: Credit Shelter Trust

Individuals can be trustees of these trusts, and often are. The credit shelter trust will have the limitation of being used for "health, education, maintenance and support" only, which means the surviving spouse cannot live a more opulent lifestyle than the one he/she was accustomed to while both spouses were living.

As far as other limitations, the trustee generally does not have the power to distribute money to him/herself (except trustee fees) unless this power is limited. There are other limitations you can place, of course, so this should be discussed with your attorney as you plan your trust.

Chris Johnson

Christopher B. Johnson, Attorney at Law

614 East Colorado Boulevard, Pasadena, CA

Re: Credit Shelter Trust

USUALLY the trustee IS an individual. The trust document itself

spells out some of the limitations, e.g., MUST distribute all income

to beneficiary quarterly or more often, or ... corpus may be invaded

only for purposes falling under a specific "ascertainable standard", usually

"health, education, maintenance and support in a manner to which the beneficiary

is accustomed" or some such; I ASSUME your document is being drafted by a lawyer

and you will get more guidance from her/him on that.

There are general rules for all trustees (an in general all fiduciaries) not to

do any self-dealing, to preserve and invest prudently the corpus,

not to use the money in any way that could get you some money on the side, etc.

These are not things for a layperson to trifle with; the typical

Prudent Investor Rule itself is several pages of law with hundreds of pages

of explanation behind it.

I studied fiduciary law of Indiana for a project there ... I'm actually

a fiduciary myself under IN law, by the way. It's actually a slight bit

anomalous, from what I recall.

Bottom line: use a lawyer. I know two good trust lawyers in Evansville,

and could probably find you one elsewhere in the state if you send me the

city you live in.

[email protected]

Stu Williams

21 Walter St.

Newton MA 02459

Stuart Williams

Law Offices of Stuart J. Williams

21 Walter St.