As with anything that involves legal help and your financial record, trusts require a financial commitment from the grantor to establish and make proper. As such, it was common for many people who were not particularly wealthy to skip over a trust and not even utilize what could be a critical part of their estate plan. Over the years, this notion has crumbled but there is still a financial commitment to make when establishing a trust.
So how could someone create a trust while on a budget? This is where a pooled charitable trust can help. A pooled charitable trust is when a group of people get together and all contribute to a trust that is established by a charity. Like an investment fund, you would contribute to the trust and any returns on the investment would be paid to you. While you can’t store property in a pooled charitable trust, bonds and stocks are allowed.
Pooling your money in this way with other people, while having that money in a charity, is a secure way for you to create a trust on a budget. Such a trust also has many of the benefits of more “traditional” trusts, such as revocable or irrevocable trusts.
Even though this sounds like a great idea though, you shouldn’t take the matter of entering a pooled charitable trust lightly. Such a decision needs to be discussed, and you should consult with an experienced estate planning attorney to ensure you are going about the process in the right way.
