Types of Trusts Our Franklin Attorneys Draft
Every client’s situation is different. Our trust lawyers help families navigate the full range of trust options and build the structure that fits their specific circumstances. Most clients do not need multiple complex trusts. The right structure depends on your specific goals, and in many cases a single well-designed trust is all you need.
Revocable Living Trusts
A revocable living trust is the most common trust in estate planning, and for good reason. You create it during your lifetime, fund it with your assets, and retain full control to amend or revoke it at any time.
The appeal is practical. When you pass away, the assets funded in the revocable living trust transfer to your beneficiaries outside of probate. That means no court involvement, no probate attorney fees, no probate court costs, and no public record of what you owned or who received it. Your beneficiaries get access to their inheritance faster and with far less stress than the probate process typically allows.
It is also important to have a pour-over will with your revocable living trust. This type of will ensures that all assets outside the trust pass into the trust to be distributed according to your plan. Together, they form the foundation of most complete estate plans.
Irrevocable Trusts
An irrevocable trust, once established, generally cannot be changed or revoked without difficulty. In exchange for giving up that control, you gain significant benefits. For example, with certain types of irrevocable trusts, assets may be removed from your taxable estate, shielded from creditors, or both. Irrevocable trusts are a cornerstone of tax, wealth, and asset protection planning and are often used by clients in Franklin, Tennessee focused on protecting wealth for future generations.
The sections below cover specific irrevocable trust vehicles, each designed for a different purpose and a different client situation.
Supplemental Needs Trusts
A supplemental needs trust provides for a beneficiary with a disability without disqualifying them from government benefits such as Medicaid or Supplemental Security Income. These trusts require careful drafting to comply with federal and state requirements, and they remain one of the most important estate planning tools available to families with a disabled child or dependent. Our estate planning attorneys help families build special needs trusts that provide genuine long-term security.
Testamentary Trusts
A testamentary trust is created through your will and takes effect at your death. It is often used to manage assets for minor children until they reach a certain age, or to provide ongoing support for beneficiaries who need structure around how and when they receive funds. Unlike a living trust, a testamentary trust goes through probate before it takes effect, but it remains a practical option when lifetime funding is not a priority.
Asset Protection and Spendthrift Trusts
Asset protection trusts (sometimes called spendthrift trusts) protect beneficiaries from their own financial decisions and from creditors. When assets are held in a spendthrift trust, beneficiaries cannot assign their interest to a creditor, and creditors generally cannot reach the assets before they are distributed. These trusts are a practical asset protection solution for clients with beneficiaries who struggle to manage money or who face ongoing legal or financial exposure.
Advanced Tax Planning Trusts
For clients in Franklin, Tennessee with larger estates, advanced trust structures can reduce or defer estate and gift taxes significantly. Spousal Lifetime Access Trusts (SLATs) allow you to remove assets from your taxable estate while your spouse retains access to the trust during their lifetime. Intentionally Defective Grantor Trusts (IDGTs) and Grantor Retained Annuity Trusts (GRATs) are used to shift future appreciation out of your estate at reduced transfer tax cost. Each of these complex structures requires careful coordination with your financial and tax advisors, and our attorneys work closely with those professionals to make sure your estate plan functions as a whole.
Irrevocable Life Insurance Trusts
An Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT) keeps life insurance proceeds out of your taxable estate. When you own a life insurance policy directly, the death benefit is included in your estate for tax purposes. An ILIT removes that exposure while still allowing the proceeds to benefit your family. For clients with substantial life insurance coverage, an ILIT can represent significant estate tax savings.
Charitable Trusts
Charitable Remainder Trusts (CRTs) and Charitable Lead Trusts (CLTs) allow clients to provide for both their families and the charitable organizations they care about. A CRT provides income to family members during their lifetimes, with the remaining assets passing to charity at the end of the trust term. A CLT provides income to charity first, with the remainder passing to family. Both structures offer potential tax benefits and are worth considering for clients in Franklin with philanthropic goals and complex estates.
Amending, Decanting, and Modifying Trusts
Circumstances change. Families grow, assets shift, relationships evolve, and tax laws get rewritten. When a trust no longer reflects your intentions or your situation, there are several paths forward, and which options are available depends heavily on the type of trust involved.
Amending a Revocable Trust
If you have a revocable living trust, modification is straightforward. As the grantor, you retain the right to amend or revoke the trust at any time during your lifetime. Adding a beneficiary, changing a trustee, updating distribution terms, or restructuring the trust entirely are all within your control. Our attorneys help clients keep their revocable trusts current as their lives change, and we recommend reviewing trust documents every few years even when nothing major has happened.
Modifying an Irrevocable Trust
Irrevocable trusts are a different matter entirely. By design they are meant to be permanent, and the restrictions on modification are real and significant. That said, Tennessee law does provide several mechanisms that may allow changes under the right circumstances. Tools like trust decanting and nonjudicial settlement agreements are helpful, but they are not a simple substitute for proper drafting at the outset.
Trust decanting allows a trustee to move assets from an existing irrevocable trust into a new trust with modified terms. Tennessee’s decanting statute gives trustees a tool to update outdated provisions, improve administrative flexibility, or address drafting problems without going to court, but it has meaningful limits. It cannot be used to benefit the trustee at the expense of beneficiaries or to override the fundamental purposes the grantor intended when the trust was created.
Non-judicial settlement agreements (NJSAs) offer another path. Under Tennessee law, trustees and beneficiaries can enter into a binding agreement to resolve disputes, modify certain trust terms, or approve trustee actions without litigation. NJSAs preserve family relationships, avoid court costs, and keep trust matters private. They require the consent of all affected parties and are not available for every type of modification, but when they apply they are often the most practical and least disruptive option available.
Both tools require careful legal analysis to determine whether they are appropriate in your situation. Our trust attorneys can assess your options and help you pursue the right course.
Very few estate planning attorneys regularly work with irrevocable trust modifications, and this is an area where experience matters.
Trust Administration in Tennessee
Creating a trust is only the first step. Trust administration, the process of managing and distributing trust assets after the grantor’s death or incapacity, requires careful attention to Tennessee trust law, tax obligations, and the rights of beneficiaries.
Trustees carry significant legal duties, including the duty to act in the best interests of beneficiaries, maintain accurate records, provide notices to beneficiaries, file required tax returns, and distribute assets according to the terms of the trust. Mistakes in trust administration can expose trustees to personal liability and damage family relationships that took a lifetime to build.
Our Franklin, TN attorneys assist trustees throughout the entire process, from the initial inventory of trust assets to final distribution. We also represent beneficiaries who have concerns about how a trust is being administered. Whether you are a trustee navigating your responsibilities or a beneficiary with specific concerns, our trust lawyers are here to guide you.
Julia Mynhier 
John Crow 
Thomas Steelman 
