The Personal Asset Trust℠ (PAT) is drafted to be flexible and to adapt to a beneficiary’s changing life stages or personal situations. It can even adapt to changes in state or federal law. Without a PAT, your revocable trust will become irrevocable upon your death, often an undesirable result since an irrevocable trust cannot adapt or change.
The PAT includes extensive trust protector provisions, which allow the trust to adapt and provide the trustee (often times your child) with flexibility. An example of this flexibility is the ability for the PAT to be converted to a special needs trust that would allow a special needs loved one to be eligible for state and federal benefit programs while remaining the beneficiary of this trust. (See more about
Special Needs Planning.) Another example is the ability to adapt from an Illinois trust to a trust of another state which your child may reside in, if that state has more favorable local tax laws.