Manage your children’s assets
Your children are your everything. Your work tirelessly for them. As parents you administer the child’s assets. Provided you have parental custody. But what if you become terminally ill and can no longer see your children grow up? In this particular case, who shall manage your children’s assets? Is the other (possibly divorced) parent able to do this? What can you do today?
Inventory
What measures are taken if a parent dies? The other surviving parent must submit an inventory of the child’s assets to the child protection authority.
Proceeds
Parents are allowed to use the proceeds from their child’s assets for the maintenance, upbringing and education of the child. However, you may want to prevent this from happening by establishing free child’s assets.
Free child’s assets
Proceeds should not be used. Or parental administration is excluded.
Reason
You may wish to establish free child ‘s assets if one parent appears unsuitable for administration or for administering an estate, if the child’s assets shall grow or if a child shall be prepared for economic independence.
Course of action
How do you achieve this? If you donate, you can stipulate that the proceeds will not be consumed. Parents or third parties (e.g. grandparents) can order the administration to be excluded from donations to a child. This is possible both in the case of donations inter vivos or by disposition on death.
Last will and testament, contract of inheritance
Make a will or conclude an inheritance contract. With a disposition by will, even the child’s statutory share can be excluded from parental administration, without giving reasons. A will is unilateral; you may revoke it and change it at any time. Whereas a contract of succession is binding unless all parties involved agree to cancellation.
Administrator
Determine who will manage the child’s assets. Choose a specific, neutral person as administrator. Additionally, appoint a substitute if the first person named cannot or no longer wants to carry out its office.
The administrator takes on the role of executor limited to a portion of the inheritance. He takes over the administration until the heir of the person in question comes of age. Even beyond the age of majority an administration of a part of the inheritance may be foreseen: A testator may attach burdens or conditions to his disposition. He may order that the administration should last, if it is not a compulsory portion. Thus, he may postpone the delivery of a specific portion of the inheritance.
The child protection authority
The child protection authority may require the administrator respectively the third party to carry out instructions, such as to issue periodic accounting and reports. It even may entrust the administration to a child welfare advocate if the child’s assets are at risk.