Comprehensive trust services tailored to meet your unique needs.
Our Services
At Mwamba Trust Fund, we offer a diverse range of trust services to secure your financial future and protect your assets. Our services include Special Needs Trusts for long-term care, Spousal Income Trusts for financial stability, and Asset Protection Trusts to safeguard your wealth. We also provide Lifetime Trusts for Heirs, Advance Healthcare Trusts, and Financial Durable Power of Attorney services. Additionally, we offer Assignment of Personal Property, Life Insurance Trusts, Charitable Remainder Trusts, and Generation-Skipping Trusts. Explore our tailored solutions to find the right trust for your unique needs.
From special needs trusts to asset protection, we safeguard your financial future.
1. Special Needs Trust
This is a legal arrangement and fiduciary relationship that allows a physically or mentally disabled or chronically ill person to receive income and maintain their integrity as a person. Special needs trusts are irrevocable, and their assets cannot be seized by creditors or by the winner of a lawsuit.
2. Spousal Income Trust
Under a marital gift trust with powers of appointment, the estate is split into two shares. The A share is placed in a trust fund. The 2nd share is gifted directly to the surviving spouse. The surviving spouse receives income and, depending upon the terms of the trust documents, also has access to the trust fund's principal.
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In many instances, the trust fund documents will give the surviving spouse the power to appoint beneficiaries of the trust upon the death of the surviving spouse.
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One benefit of the spousal income trust is the surviving spouse is not required to take distributions of income on an annual basis. Instead, the surviving spouse can leave the principal intact, which may increase the overall value of the trust for all parties.
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The trust gives income to your surviving spouse for his or her lifetime. But when your spouse dies, the assets remain in the trust for the benefit of your children. Because your spouse does not directly own the assets, he/she cannot convey them to a new spouse and his or her own heirs.
3. Asset Protection Trust
An asset-protection trust is any form of trust which provides for funds to be held on a discretionary basis. Such trusts are set up to or mitigate the effects of taxation, divorce, litigation and bankruptcy on the beneficiary. Typically, what makes an “asset protection trust” different from any other kind of trust is that it is a “self-settled” spendthrift trust. This means that you are the settlor and the beneficiary with a certain amount of control over how the trust assets are used.
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When assets are placed in a trust, they are separate from the settlor. Therefore, if the settlor is sued, only the individual’s personal assets can be pursued. Even the trust assets that are being distributed to the beneficiary are off limits through protective provisions in the trust deed.
4. Lifetime Trust for Heirs
In order to avoid issues with joint ownership and beneficiary designations, you may want to set up lifetime trusts for your children or other loved ones that take effect upon your death. With lifetime trusts, the assets of the trust are available for the needs of the beneficiary, but they are protected from judgments, creditors, etc.
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If the beneficiary gets sued and has a large judgment against them, the judgment creditor cannot touch the amounts that you left the beneficiary in their lifetime trust. Similarly, with the divorcing spouse, the inheritance would be considered the beneficiary’s separate property and not counted in the event of a divorce property settlement. With these lifetime trusts, upon a beneficiary’s death, probate is avoided because the trust directs where the assets will go after the beneficiary’s death.
5. Advanced Healthcare
This is a document that declares who will make healthcare decisions (including mental healthcare decisions) for you if you are unable to make those decisions for yourself. This document will also state the conditions under which you do not want your life to be prolonged and do not want life-sustaining treatment, beyond comfort care, if that treatment would serve only to artificially delay the moment of death.It may also state that if you are in a terminal condition, you do not want cardiopulmonary resuscitation, drugs, electric shock, artificial breathing, artificially administered food and fluids, or to be taken to a hospital if at all avoidable.
6. Financial Durable Power of Attorney
The durable financial power of attorney is simply a way to allow someone else to manage your finances in the event that you become incapacitated and are unable to make those decisions yourself. More precisely, it grants someone legal authority to act on your behalf for financial issues.
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A financial power of attorney can be drafted so that it goes into effect as soon as you sign it. You should specify that you want your power of attorney to be "durable." Or you can specify that the power of attorney does not go into effect unless a doctor certifies that you have become incapacitated. This is called a "springing" durable power of attorney. It allows you to keep control over your affairs until you become incapacitated, which is when it springs into effect.
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You may give the trustees authority to do some or all of the following:
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use your assets to pay your everyday expenses and those of your family.
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buy, sell, maintain, pay taxes on, and mortgage real estate and other property.
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invest your money in stocks, bonds, and mutual funds.
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handle transactions with banks and other financial institutions.
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buy and sell insurance policies and annuities for you.
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file and pay your taxes.
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operate your small business.
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claim property you inherit or are otherwise entitled to.
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transfer property to a trust you've already created.
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hire someone to represent you in court, and manage your retirement accounts.
7. Assignment of Personal Property
This Assignment acts as the method of transferring all your tangible personal property assets (generally such assets do not have a title or an ownership document) to your Trust (thereby avoiding the necessity or possibility of having to probate these assets). This Assignment also transfers your digital assets and/or rights (including any “social media”, online accounts and/or email accounts) to the Trust.
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In the course of time, you may want your wedding ring to pass to a particular daughter – or you may want a friend to get your car – or you may change your mind about another bequest. This is expected to change over time. By creating a specific place to assign your personal property, contained in the Schedule of the Grant Letter, you can edit your bequests at any time, without having to have your entire will re-executed or revised.
8. Life Insurance Trust
For high net-worth individuals, owning their own life insurance is a big mistake — because the death benefit is subject to taxes. To solve this problem, have a life insurance trust own your policy. Instead of paying for the insurance yourself, you give that money to the trust, which will pay the premium for you. The trust then becomes beneficiary, and your heirs would be the beneficiaries of the trust.
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Another additional benefit of a life insurance trust is that instead of beneficiaries automatically getting the insurance proceeds immediately upon your death, you can instruct the trust to distribute the money to the heirs gradually.
9. Charitable Reminder Trust
Instead of donating to charity after your death, it is beneficial to donate to such a trust now and get tax relief right now for your gift. You also can name yourself as the income beneficiary (giving yourself an annual income) and the charity gets what is left after your death, tax free just as you intended.
10. Generation-Skipping Trusts
Such trusts are intended for truly wealthy estates, can preserve your assets for several generations while avoiding estate taxes. You can fund the Trust with the same amount as the bypass trust for the benefit of your grandchildren and great-grandchildren, and the assets will appreciate free of income and estate taxes. Such assets can also be protected from creditors.
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If you are concerned that making the gift to this Trust denies your children their inheritance, you can buy a life insurance policy equal to the size of your gift, naming your children as beneficiaries of the insurance by using some of the trust’s income to pay the policy’s premiums.
