I am a 50 year old Hindu widower with two young (5 and 7 years old) daughters. I want to make a will in which I leave all my assets and property to them equally. However, I would like to include a condition that my daughters will not be entitled to the assets and properties left to them under my will until they reach the age of 25, so that they will have greater maturity when they receive my money. Can I include such a clause in my will?
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We assume that the assets in question are not ancestral property.
Since you plan for your daughters to receive the assets only once they reach age 25, consider making a will to give the interest in the assets to the executor of your will until your daughters reach this age. reaches. If you do not create such an interest, your daughters, if they have reached the age of majority (that is, they have reached the age of 18) at the time of your death, will be entitled to immediately receive the assets left to them and to keep. Whereas, if your daughters are minors, the guardian you named in your will would be in charge of the property you leave to them until they reach adulthood, at which point they can claim the property for themselves.
Alternatively, you may also consider setting up a ‘testamentary trust’, which is a trust set up under your will to hold the assets until your daughters turn 25 years old. The trustee of the trust may be the executor named in the will or another trusted person. Such a trust does not take effect until your death, but its terms can be changed during your lifetime if necessary by amending the will.
A third alternative is to set up a private trust during your lifetime and leave assets to the trust under your will. In this trust you can determine that the assets will be held for the benefit of your daughters until they turn 25 years old and then divided among them.
In any case, the executor or trustee may be ordered to reinvest the income from the assets (such as rent, dividends, etc.) and may be prohibited from disposing/selling your assets.
Different factors must be taken into account for each structure. It is advisable that you engage a lawyer who can advise on these factors and assist in preparing all relevant documentation.
When drawing up the will or trust deed, you can decide whether your eldest daughter will receive the assets that belong to her immediately after her 25th birthday, without having to wait until your youngest daughter also turns 25, or whether both daughters will share the assets together. received once your youngest daughter is 25.
Shaishavi Kadakia is a partner and Radhika Parthasarathy is a senior associate at Cyril Amarchand Mangaldas, Mumbai.
