Merging Mirroring Spousal Trusts When Both Are Deceased

It is quite common for spouses to do estate planning together, especially in first marriages. Often their revocable estate planning trusts are mirror images of each other because the spouses want to provide for their children in the same way. Once both parents die, the children are often left with multiple trusts that can be onerous to administer. Wouldn’t it be easier if the trusts could be collapsed into a single trust? What if instead of managing two or more trusts for each beneficiary, there is only one?

In this presentation we discuss the issues and considerations that planners need to identify and consider when presented with mirroring spousal trusts.