Super-TRUST-Powers, Part III | Healing
Restore biotic organisms to their optimal health, curing wounds, broken bones, or disease. Potentially heal from any form of bodily damage.
The power to heal is an attractive power in our day. Imagine being in the position to instantaneously cure yourself of the flu, heart disease, or better yet any, form of cancer – including in someone else. Your primary care physician and specialists would get lonely. Or, you could heal a dying field mouse caught in a trap underneath your kitchen sink instead of tossing it in the recycling bin over your spouse’s vehement objections.
I know what you’re thinking (not about the mouse – focus, please), could a trust with healing abilities put lawyers out of work? Uh…nope, sorry. But it could make less work for your Trustee and heal a hurting trust. Enter the Trust Protector.
Super-TRUST-Power: Healing Ability
Secret Weapon: Trust Protection
A trust that you cannot change (i.e. an irrevocable trust, or a trust that becomes irrevocable at death) may have no method for amendment if it becomes necessary to do so. For instance, the trust may become “sick” due to its old age and in need of changes to comply with current law or with your intentions, or the trust could succumb to disease in the form of a derelict trustee neglecting their duties or engaging in self-dealing. If you don’t have the power to make the needed changes, then you or your beneficiaries may have to go to court to have the trust healed or reformed, with a judge serving as the attending physician.
That sounds inconvenient and expensive. And it is.
Sometimes you just wish the plumber was standing out back, ready to work. Waiting around the house for help while the upstairs shower drain leaks repetitively into your living room only to have that help arrive hours (and buckets) later to then create a new leak – in your wallet – is the reason, I’m sure, most of us pretend to be superheroes when we’re young. Forget healing the body, let’s heal some pipes! Isn’t “Pipeman” the next blockbuster to be released in theaters next summer?
In any case, what if you could outsmart such disasters? Designating an individual to serve as the “Pipeman” of your trust would avoid the necessity of court involvement. This person is more formally called a Trust Protector, and could make improvements, ensure your objectives are fulfilled and put your trustee in position to do their best for your beneficiaries. The Trust Protector cannot be related to you or to your beneficiaries, and is prohibited from serving as the trustee. Although, you can retain the power to remove and replace them at any time. Your attorney or CPA are often smart choices for this role.
While the ability to heal a sick trust may not be as glamorous as curing an incurable disease (or a leaky pipe!), it ranks towards the top in the realm of trust planning. Things break, people break and yes, even trusts break. While a plumber can fix a broken pipe and a surgeon can fix a broken body, trusts are often left without a specialist capable of making it whole again. Designating a Trust Protector to act as the repairman of your trust is simply akin to the everyday choices we make concerning these other needs.
Stay tuned for our next issue, featuring the super-TRUST-powers of super speed abilities, and click here for more on wills and trusts.
Read issue I, Atomic Manipulation and Shapeshifting, here.
Read issue II, Invincibility, here.
Read issue IV, Super Speed, here.
