<p>Does anyone know how property held in a trust affects financial aid? If one's family has a trust and one parent is one of the trustees, is this reported as an asset on the FAFSA? The trust I'm speaking of will be set up to administer a piece of real estate. None of the trustees currently own any part of the property. The trust will own it once it's set up.</p>
<p>If the kid is the beneficiary, the whole trust corpus that he is the beneficiary of is probably counted in financial aid. Even if its up to the trustee whether to release the asset to the beneficiary or not. So if there is a $300,000 piece of land in the trust and six trust beneficiaries with equal shares, the trust bene applying for FA probably will be treated as having $50,000.00 in assets. Trusts are pretty bad vehicles for avoiding financial aid, although they may be excellent for other purposes.</p>
<p>But just being a trustee, without ownership rights, won't affect aid, like if the parent of a person applying for aid is also the trustee of a trust for the benefit of a nephew.</p>
<p>Thanks Muffy, I sent you a PM with some more of the details.</p>