Would a trust help to prevent my children from spending their inheritance frivolously?

Financial Post · Andrew Dobson · 2026-11-06 11:00 UTC

FP Answers: One of the big challenges of gifting money is that you may not like what your kids do with it

Q. After we’re gone we believe we’ll be able to give each of our three married children a six-figure inheritance. How can these funds be safeguarded from being considered marital assets in case of a future divorce amongst our kids? We want the funds to go strictly to our children and the grandkids — not to their exes.

That said, watching some of my friends’ experiences with giving money to their kids has been sobering.

A good friend of mine (late 60s) gifted $200,000 to each of his three kids. The son bought a small boat, invested $20,000 in their only child’s registered education savings plan (RESP) and put the remaining $140,000 into investments. The two daughters, on the other hand, went on a massive spending spree, including taking $10,000 vacations, having multiple $1,500 dinners with their friends (and blasting it on social media) and spending every penny in less than 12 months with very little to show for it. He put no conditions on how this money had to be spent.

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