Personal Trust & Estate Services

Securing Your Financial Future Through a Trust

Each individual has unique and very personal financial needs. Clinton National Bank's trust professionals can work closely with you to design and manage programs to meet you and your family’s long-term financial needs. We offer a variety of tools to help you select and maintain the right mix of assets to meet your objectives. Working together with you, we will choose the right types of investments to achieve your financial goals.

Personal Trust Services

Clinton National Bank provides trustee services. A personal trust drafted by an attorney can be an effective tool for asset management and protection, tax and estate planning.

Every trust should be tailor-made to the financial needs and goals of the grantor. A trust may be created for any number of beneficiaries, including the grantor, and may provide for just about any method of property distribution that the grantor desires.

Trusts can accomplish your desired objectives of asset management, retirement and financial planning. While skilled investment management can help you accumulate assets, a trust relationship can help preserve your assets and ensure that they are distributed as you intend. The reasons for establishing a trust are as many and varied as the people who have trusts:

• Peace of mind
• Protection
• Relief from the responsibilities of managing assets
• A desire for consistent, ongoing asset management
• To provide for loved ones before and after death
• Contingency planning
• Charitable giving

Corporate Trustee

Clinton National Bank can serve as a corporate trustee of your personal trust, providing uninterrupted professional management of your assets. Your property is cared for strictly in accordance with the governing trust document, your wishes as the grantor of the trust, and the needs of the beneficiaries. As a corporate trustee, our authority to act on your behalf can be as broad or as limited as you and your attorney outline in your trust document. Corporate trustees are regulated by state and federal agencies and are periodically audited.

Creating a Trust

Your attorney, tax advisor, or estate planning professional can guide you through the various tasks associated with each step in creating a trust.

1. Select an attorney – It is important to identify an attorney with estate planning experience.
2. Consult your attorney and tax advisor – Your attorney and tax advisor can help you determine what kind of trust meets your needs and your objectives, and the best way to structure your trust to minimize taxes.
3. Identify assets – Decide which assets you want to place in the trust. Segregate assets you hold personally from those held in joint tenancy. To avoid probate, it is important to transfer as much of your personal assets into the trust as is possible.
4. Lifetime Management Needs – Decide how you want your assets to be managed during your life considering your current income needs, growth objectives, and risk tolerance.
5. Specify Beneficiaries and Distribution – Identify the individuals and charities to which the trust is to make distributions after your death and when distributions are to be made.
6. Select a Trustee – Your trustee will be responsible for the administration of your assets during and after your lifetime. If you select an individual you should also name a successor trustee in the event the original trustee should resign, become incapacitated or meet their demise prior to completing the administration of the trust. Naming Clinton National Bank as the primary or successor trustee assures continuity of the administration of your trust.
7. Draft your Agreement – Your attorney will draft a document that achieves your objectives and reflects your personal intentions. Provide your trustee and successor trustee with a copy.
8. Funding Your Trust – One of the most common mistakes made when establishing a trust is failing to properly fund it. You will need to change the legal title of the assets from your name to that of the trust. Examples include:
   • Convey real estate to be held in the trust to the trustee.
   • Change the named beneficiary of insurance policies to the trust.
   • Change the legal ownership of bank accounts and CDs.
   • Change the legal ownership of mutual funds and brokerage accounts.
   • Re-register physical securities you may hold.

estate services

Name Clinton National Bank as Executor of your Will, for professional service that relieves your heirs of the burden of estate management.