Page 13 - MidWeek - Nov 30, 2022

About 13 years ago, my husband and I created a trust. Before that, we did a lot of research while trying to decide between making a will or creating a trust. According to Investopedia.com, a will is “a legal document that spells out how you want your affairs handled and assets distributed after you die,” while a trust is “a fiduciary arrangement whereby a grantor (also called a ‘trustor’ ) grants a ‘trustee’ the right to hold and manage assets for the benefit of a specific purpose or person.”
W e decided on creating a trust because we wanted our assets managed for the benefit of our child in the event that something unforeseen happened to one or both of us. Again, we did our due diligence and researched to find a reputable trust attorney. W e then went through the
several-monthslong process of figuring out guardians, trustees and what should be included in the trust. Once it was completed, we got a nice binder full of legal documents. W e felt good and patted ourselves on the back for making the right decision to spend the time and money to create our trust.
Fast-forward 10 years, and we met with our financial planner to get our trust reviewed. Y owza! The trust we spent all that time and money on was established but not funded! Apparently, we were supposed to file documents and establish accounts under the trust in order to have it funded. What does that mean, you ask? W ell, all the assets that we had that were not specifically listed under the trust’ s name would not be included in the trust. Therefore, if anything happened to one or both of us,
November 30, 2022 MIDWEEK 13
PAULETTE ITO
SVP Marketing
Hawaiian Financial Federal Credit Union
Creating A Trust Paulette Ito
the trustee would only have a piece of paper naming them as the trustee — of nothing.
As I was venting my frustration about the situation to our new trust attorney, he told us he comes across situations like ours a lot. He said sometimes life gets in the way and when something comes up, assets cannot be and/or are not moved into a trust, and then it gets forgotten over time.
The trust review was eye- opening. Not only did I find out that our trust was not funded, but we also found that laws have changed
since we created our trust. The preexisting ideas of how we wanted our trust set up 13 years ago is not how we set up our new trust. The continued protection of our assets now and to our beneficiaries in the future was paramount, and the new laws and regulations helped us do that.
I am very grateful to our financial planner who encouraged us to get the trust reviewed, and am pleased with the current trust that we have established. This time, we had third-party help instead of doing it ourselves.
Now, we can pat ourselves on the back knowing that our trust is filed and funded.
Part of the “Get Y our House In Order” initiative includes knowing what assets you have, deciding what you want to do with them and setting up the plan to make it happen. The Ho‘okele guidebook is available to help you document and create a road map for your life journey. You can get Ho‘okele from hificu.com/ gyho and fill out the PDF online or print a hard copy. There will be four editions of the guidebook that will be
released every quarter. Once you sign up and download the guidebook, you will receive an email reminding you of subsequent releases.
For more information about the “Get Your House in Order” campaign, email GYHO@hificu.com and watch a new episode of Get Your House In Order at 7:00 p.m. every Saturday on KITV4. This Saturday, join Jennifer Okubo Polido as she shares who should get a trust, when they should do it and how the process of creating a trust works.
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