6. What control do I have? What stops my parents — or anyone — from doing something with the assets I don't want?
Control rights in any APT — you hold every meaningful lever:
- All investment decisions are exclusively yours. Nobody can buy or sell a trust asset without your direction.
- You can veto any distribution to any person other than yourself, with 30 days' advance written notice required before the trustee can act.
- You can fire and replace the trustee — and the trust protector and any other fiduciary — at any time, without giving a reason.
- You can swap assets in and out of the trust at any time by substituting other assets of equal value.
- You can redirect assets to anyone (except back to yourself) or to charity during your life. (Note: redirecting assets to a person completes a gift at that moment and does count against your gift exemption — see Question 23. Redirecting to charity generates a charitable deduction instead.)
The one thing you give up, in any APT: you cannot force the trustee to pay money to you personally — that limitation is precisely what makes the creditor protection work.
Upstream Trust-specific — what about the parents? Your parents can do nothing. Their tax power exists only at death, on paper. It is drafted so it cannot be used to take assets, and they have no right to demand, sell, borrow against, or spend anything during life. Other beneficiaries have no rights to demand anything either.
7. Can I change the investments once assets are in the trust? Buy, sell, invest?
Yes, fully. As Investment Director you have exclusive, unrestricted authority to buy, sell, trade, and reinvest trust assets — stocks, real estate, businesses, funds, anything. Day to day, managing the portfolio feels the same as managing your own brokerage account. What changes is that sale proceeds stay inside the trust's protective wrapper, and personal withdrawals require the trustee (see Question 10).
8. What does it mean that I can "swap" assets?
You hold a substitution power: at any time, you can exchange assets you own personally for trust assets of equal value — for example, put in $1 million of cash and take out $1 million of stock. The trustee confirms the values are equivalent, but cannot refuse a fair swap. It's a built-in flexibility valve that also happens to be the technical feature that keeps the trust's favorable income tax status.
9. Can I add more assets after the initial funding?
Yes, at any time, and so can others. Two clocks to keep in mind: each new contribution starts its own creditor "seasoning" clock (see Question 27), and its own 12-month clock for the basis step-up rule. The parents' powers may also need updating so newly added low-basis assets are covered.