Choosing a Trust Bank/Investment Account

Question

Not that it matters for this question, but for people following my life story :), this is a follow up to this question:

Options for Protecting Inheritance Before Death?

So we have created an income-only, irrevocable trust for my mother's estate. The papers were signed yesterday, and we await the closing on her home to fund the trust.

My next step is to open an account to store and invest the trust's funds. "Invest" may be the wrong word, since I only intend to put the funds in very safe vehicles, possibly limited to savings accounts and CDs.

For my own personal finances, I use Fidelity (retirement accounts), which makes it very simple to buy CDs and have the interest just roll back into the account. I don't intend to use a brokerage for the trust for a number of reasons, one of them being that brokerage CD rates tend to be less competitive than bank CD rates. However, the overall experience and ease-of-use of these accounts is pretty much exactly what I'm looking for.

I'd like to know if there are tools or specific banks I should be looking at to simulate the low-overhead experience I get with Fidelity. I don't need the rates to be the absolute best, but they need to be at least competitive. I will also need the ability to write checks, and (even better) the ability to transfer all interest income to my mother's non-trust accounts (automatically would be great!).

Answer 1

The Fidelity-type broker should be able to handle this pretty easily.

I happen to use Schwab. My Mother in law had me handle her finances when my father in law passed on, about 12 years ago. 4 years ago, she was starting to lose the ability to function on her own, and we sold her house and did exactly what you intend, deposit to a trust. Not that she recently passed away, I remain the trustee, and will write checks (or direct transfer) to my sister in law. In your case, signing in and transferring shouldn't be too big an issue.

TL:DR, you still need to 'invest' the money, even if it mean choosing CDs, money market, etc. I kept a stock/cash mix that outlived my MIL by 2+ years. When my father in law passed, he was convinced that she wouldn't have enough. I promised him I'd take case of his wife and unmarried daughter. One down one to go...