Living trusts can extend long after you die. If you want the trust to benefit your infant grandchildren, for example, you might specify that the trustee make gifts to them as needed until they are fully grown. Living trusts, like wills, give you wide flexibility in distributing your property. For example, the trust agreement could say "at my death, my trustee is to give my car to my son Cain, my coat to my son Jacob" and so on. Your instructions can tell the trustee to continue managing assets for the benefit of someone else, distribute them to any beneficiaries you choose, or perform some combination of these actions. If beneficiaries of your living trust die before you do, the property reverts to you, unless you've named other people (contingent beneficiaries) for those gifts.

Unless taxes are a worry--and they won't be in the vast majority of estates--you should be sure to retain the right to revoke or amend your trust whenever you wish (see chapter nine for more about this). Have your lawyer create a revocable trust agreement, which allows you to change the terms or trustee or just to forget the whole thing if it's too much trouble.

It can be a bother to set up and fund the living trust, but the payoff for your family comes when you die. If Ilda wanted her property to go to her friend, Rick, for example, she would put it in a trust and name him co-trustee or successor trustee. Then, when she dies, he becomes sole trustee, and acting in that capacity, transfers the trust property to the beneficiary--himself. Since the property does not have to go through probate, there's no break in continuity.

A living trust can contain other, separate trusts, which gives you a nice flexibility. For example, if you plan to leave some of your property to your minor children in trust (see next chapter), you could specify in your trust that the children's property goes into a separate irrevocable children's trust. You can design separate trusts for several beneficiaries, all funded (usually at your death) by the assets in your living trust.