You should have a lawyer for you, your brother, and your cousins read the trust. This needs to be a lawyer for you not the trustee. This all makes little sense. At the best, you have not properly been informed of the trust and your rights. At worse there is some fraud, conflict of interest, or other lack of fiduciary duty on the part of the trustee. You need to know the current balance. Little to no chance that it is exactly $1million. Did it start as $mil and has it grown. Is part of a larger amount in which $mil was designated to be distributed? Why is your share $250. Up the annual limit is $45. Many students only go to college for 4 years. This would by default leave $70k unused. This is a large amount of money. The 4 of you deserve answers.
@earlsharon Trust is like another asset e.g. bank balance, stocks etc so add it as an asset in FAFSA. The school should be informed after FAFSA has been amended so that they can redo your FA. Your EFC will go up substantially with the total amount (annual limit does not matter, it is the total amount). You may have to amend CSS profile if filled it. Please seek professional advise from a lawyer.
I agree…you need a lawyer to help you understand the provisions of this trust.
I know you aren’t sharing all the details of the trust but it seems to have major holes in what you’ve been told. I agree with the others that you need your own lawyer so you are getting your fair share of this trust.
But congrats, $45,000/year to pay for college is a wonderful thing
Regarding the $45K per year cap, the school MAY take it into account or they may not. It also might depend on who put the cap there – is it written into the trust formation documents, or a cap placed by the trustee responsible for distributing the funds? It could be either. The first would generally carry more weight with schools than the second.