Trust solutions and RIAs

investmentnews.com:

Financial advisors typically provide services like tax, retirement, investment, and estate planning to solve important problems clients have with their finances. In most instances, advisors map out the appropriate plan and offer their expert advice to clients but stop short of implementing their recommended strategies or plans. In these situations, advisors often turn to third parties like trust companies, or trust solutions companies, to execute advisors’ plans and perform the duties of a trustee.  

In this article, InvestmentNews discusses: 

Let’s get into it.  

Trust solutions can be essential components of estate planning. Beyond figuring out how to manage client assets and draw up succession plans for them, RIAs must assist in implementing the estate or succession plan. However, most advisors or RIAs choose to not directly handle the execution part of the estate plan, as you’ll see in this article. Most RIAs or advisors still hand over the nitty gritty details of estate planning to a third party, aka the trust company or trust solutions provider.  

A good trust solutions provider should be able to help clients navigate the complex nuances of trusts. This refers to all types of trusts, such as: 

It’s the trust solutions provider’s duty to provide services that an advisor or RIA cannot fulfill, such as serving as the trustee and performing the fiduciary duties expected by the trust.  

A trustee’s responsibilities include:  

Given the importance of having a trustee, you’d think RIAs would offer these trust services to their clients. But why don’t they? Here are a few good reasons why:  

Advisors are typically focused on getting significant returns and growing their clients’ wealth, while a trustees’ investing capacity