The various tools of estate planning are meant to provide orderly and efficient wealth transfers. But they can be used for other means, as a Florida millionaire demonstrated recently. The man had initially set up a trust for his two young children. But he recently adopted his 42-year-old girlfriend and added her as a beneficiary of the trust.

This unusual legal move was supposedly prompted by the man's role in a drunk driving accident. In February 2010 he allegedly drove drunk and got into an accident which killed a 23-year-old man. He has been charged with DUI manslaughter, which carries a maximum penalty of 30 years in prison. In addition, the parents of the deceased man have brought a civil suit seeking compensatory and punitive damages.

Skeptics suspect that the adoption move was meant to give the man access to trust funds, which had previously been declared immune from the lawsuit. The man's lawyer, however, countered that the man was in the midst of a dispute with the trust company and made his girlfriend a beneficiary so that she could continue that fight on his behalf in the event he is sent to prison.

The trust controls a number of real estate properties and is estimated to be worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Before the adoption, a judge refused to force the man's attorney to divulge the trust's details, noting that the man had no access to trust funds. But now that his adopted girlfriend is a listed beneficiary, the judge has ruled that her share of the trust is not immune from the civil suit. The attorneys for the victim's parents have also sought to halt the sale of real property owned by the trust.

Despite this man's odd use of a trust, many people can benefit from the ordinary use of a trust in an estate plan. An experienced estate planning attorney can help create a trust tailored to your individual circumstances.

Source: The Palm Beach Post, "Parents of Scott Wilson want to block sale of 1,700-acre Texas parcel in Goodman kids' trust," Jane Musgrave, Feb. 6, 2012.