Individual estate planning while married—ensure your separate property passes to your children
A Married Individual Trust allows you to create your own separate estate plan while married, with your **children as the primary beneficiaries**. This is your personal trust for your separate property—assets you owned before marriage, inherited property, or gifts you received individually—and it ensures these assets pass directly to your children. You maintain complete control and independence over how these assets are distributed, without requiring your spouse's involvement or consent.
This trust is specifically designed for married individuals whose primary goal is to ensure their children inherit their separate property. This is particularly common in second marriages where each spouse wants to ensure their biological children from prior relationships inherit their separate property, or when parents want to maintain independent estate planning for their children's benefit.
Make your own estate planning decisions without needing spousal consent or involvement.
Ensure your biological children inherit your separate property in blended family situations.
Keep your separate assets legally distinct and protected from commingling issues.
Document exactly what is your separate property and how it should be distributed.
Ensure fair treatment of your children without impacting your spouse's estate planning.
Your separate property passes directly to your beneficiaries without court involvement.
Your Individual Trust: You create your own revocable trust and transfer your separate property into it. You serve as both grantor and trustee, maintaining complete control during your lifetime.
Separate from Spouse: This trust is legally independent of your spouse's estate plan. What they do with their property doesn't affect your trust.
Property to Your Children: Upon your death (and your spouse's death if they survive you), your separate property passes directly to your children as the primary beneficiaries. You can divide it equally among them, or specify different amounts or percentages for each child. Your spouse's estate plan operates independently.
Important: Joint property like a shared home would not go into your individual trust. You and your spouse would need to decide how to handle jointly-owned assets separately.
Individual trust passing separate property to your children
While married, maintaining independent control
Not if there's open communication. Many couples in second marriages specifically want separate trusts to ensure their children are protected. This is about clarity and fairness, not lack of trust.
Jointly-owned property like your shared home would need separate planning. You might hold it as joint tenants, tenants in common, or decide together which spouse's trust (or both) should hold it.
Absolutely! While this trust is designed with your children as the primary beneficiaries, you can include provisions for your spouse if desired.
The "Property to Children" trust is designed specifically for passing your separate property to your children (equally or in specified shares per child). The "Specific Gifting" version gives you more flexibility to leave specific items to anyone—children, grandchildren, friends, charities, etc. If your children are your primary beneficiaries, this "Property to Children" version is what you need.
In California, separate property includes: assets you owned before marriage, inheritances you received, gifts made specifically to you, and assets kept separate through prenuptial agreement. We'll help you identify what's separate.