In the United States, to prevent children from having their property embezzled or abused due to bad marriages, it is necessary to combine legal tools, guardianship arrangements and property management planning. The following are specific strategies and legal basis: 📌1. Manage property inheritance through legal tools
📜1. Establish a Trust
- Personal Trust: Parents can set up a separate trust for each child and designate a trustee (such as a relative or professional institution) to manage the estate until the child reaches a specified age (such as 25 years old or older). The trustee must use the funds for necessary expenses such as the child’s health and education in accordance with the trust document to prevent the property from being squandered or embezzled by others.
- Family Trust (“Trust Pot”): If there are many children, a unified trust can be established, and the trustee will allocate funds as needed. The disadvantage is that the older children need to wait for the trust to terminate after the youngest child reaches adulthood before they can obtain all the property.
- Irrevocable Trust: This type of trust assets are independent of the children’s personal property, which can prevent the property from being divided or frozen due to children’s divorce, debt or litigation.
📜2. Use the Uniform Minors Act (UTMA) - In a will or insurance beneficiary designation, appoint a custodian through UTMA. The custodian manages the property according to state law until the children reach the legal age (usually 21 years old), which is suitable for small inheritances. If longer-term control is required, it can be used in conjunction with a trust.
📜3. Property Guardian - Appoint a trustworthy property guardian in the will to manage the property inherited by the children to avoid the court appointing an inappropriate guardian. It should be noted that the property guardian needs to report to the court regularly and has limited authority, which is suitable for situations where there are no other property management arrangements.
📌2. Clarify guardianship and legal agreements
📃1. Guardianship allocation - Legal guardianship: Ensure that major decisions for children (such as education and medical care) are made by a trustworthy guardian. If parents are divorced or die, the guardian must be clarified through a will or court procedure to prevent the property from being controlled by non-guardians.
- Property guardianship: Separated from personal guardianship, professional institutions can be designated to manage property to reduce the risk of abuse by relatives.
📃2. Legal agreement constraints - Pre-marital/post-marital agreement: If there are risks in the future marriage of children, the ownership of pre-marital property can be clarified through an agreement to avoid the spouse dividing family assets through divorce.
- Child support management: If children need to pay child support, they can be paid through a trust to prevent funds from being misappropriated.
