Sally Marie Gimon: How a Spendthrift Trust Can Help Real Estate Investors Legally Defer Capital Gains

Most real estate investors treat the tax bill as an unavoidable cost of doing business — something to minimize at the margins with a good CPA, but never something to fundamentally restructure. Sally Marie Gimon’s story starts from a different premise entirely. After a series of life-changing events in 2018 put her financial future under a microscope, she went looking for a way to protect and grow her wealth that didn’t just trim the tax bill, but changed the legal structure holding her assets altogether. What she found was the Spendthrift Trust — and it’s reshaped how she invests, and how she talks to other investors about theirs.

Who Is Sally Marie Gimon and How Did She Get Into Real Estate?

Sally Marie Gimon is a real estate investor and insurance agent whose path into serious investing wasn’t a straight line from a business degree to a trading desk. Like a lot of investors who end up teaching others, her expertise was forged under pressure. She built real-world experience buying property and managing the tax consequences that come with it, and along the way developed a specialty that most investors never touch: the legal and tax architecture that sits underneath the deals themselves.

Her background in insurance gave her an early, practical fluency in risk — how to structure protection before something goes wrong rather than scrambling after it does. That instinct carried directly into her real estate investing, and eventually into the niche she’s become known for.

What Happened in 2018 That Changed Sally’s Financial Strategy?

In 2018, Sally went through a series of life-changing events that forced her to take a hard look at how her wealth was structured — not just how much of it there was, but how exposed it was to taxes and to risk. That turning point sent her searching for tools that could do two things at once: legally minimize what she owed on capital gains, and protect what she’d built from potential lawsuits or claims down the road.

That search led her to Business and Beneficial Spendthrift Trusts. What started as personal financial problem-solving turned into a specialty, and eventually into a second business helping other investors, business owners, and 1099 earners apply the same structure to their own portfolios.

What Is a Spendthrift Trust and How Does It Work?

A spendthrift trust is a type of trust that includes a “spendthrift clause” — legal language that restricts how a beneficiary can access and assign trust assets, which is what gives the structure its unusual level of protection. In its classic use, that clause exists to shield a beneficiary from creditors and from their own poor financial decisions; the trust holds assets on their behalf under terms the beneficiary can’t simply override.

Sally’s work centers on Business and Beneficial Spendthrift Trusts applied to real estate and investment assets. The pitch isn’t that a trust makes taxes disappear — it’s that the trust structure, applied correctly, changes how and when certain income and gains are recognized, and adds a legal layer of separation between an investor personally and the assets the trust holds. That separation is what opens the door to both tax deferral strategies and asset protection benefits in the same structure.

It’s worth being direct here: trust and tax strategy is a specialized, heavily regulated area of law. The details of how a spendthrift trust is drafted, funded, and administered determine whether it holds up — and getting it wrong can be costly. This article, and the podcast episode it’s based on, are educational starting points, not a substitute for advice from a qualified trust attorney or tax professional who can evaluate your specific situation.

How Can a Spendthrift Trust Help Real Estate Investors Defer Capital Gains?

For real estate investors, the appeal of Sally’s approach is specific: many investors eventually hit a point where a highly appreciated property creates a large taxable event on sale. Traditional tools like a 1031 exchange solve for this by requiring the investor to roll proceeds into another property, on a strict timeline, within like-kind rules. A properly structured spendthrift trust is positioned as another route — one that can, according to Sally, allow investors to legally defer capital gains recognition without being forced into an immediate like-kind replacement purchase.

That distinction matters to investors who want liquidity or flexibility after a sale, rather than being required to redeploy capital into another property right away. It’s a different tool solving an adjacent problem, and in the episode Sally walks through how the trust’s tax filing status and structure create that deferral opportunity — including how tax brackets and capital gains treatment interact with the trust itself.

What Are the Legal Protections a Spendthrift Trust Offers?

Tax deferral is only half of what draws investors to this structure. The other half is asset protection. Because a properly funded spendthrift trust holds legal title to the assets inside it, and the spendthrift clause restricts a beneficiary’s ability to freely assign trust property, the structure can make it materially harder for a creditor or plaintiff to reach those assets directly in a lawsuit.

For real estate investors — who carry more liability exposure than most, given tenants, contractors, and property conditions — that protection is a meaningful piece of the appeal. It’s the difference between a lawsuit threatening an investor’s entire net worth and a lawsuit being contained to whatever isn’t shielded inside the trust structure.

How Can Investors Get Started With a Spendthrift Trust?

Sally’s advice for investors curious about this structure starts with education before action: understand what a spendthrift trust is, how it differs from other estate planning tools like a revocable living trust or an LLC, and what it can and can’t do for your specific mix of assets. From there, the practical path typically involves working with an attorney and tax professional experienced in this specific structure to draft and properly fund the trust — a step Sally emphasizes because a poorly funded or improperly administered trust won’t deliver the protections or deferral benefits it’s designed for.

She also frames this as a generational conversation, not just a personal tax strategy. Because a spendthrift trust can hold and protect assets across a beneficiary’s lifetime, it becomes a vehicle for passing real estate and other investments to future generations with the same protective structure intact, rather than resetting the risk exposure with every transfer.

How Does a Spendthrift Trust Compare to an LLC or a Revocable Living Trust?

Real estate investors are usually already familiar with two other structures — the LLC and the revocable living trust — which makes it worth placing the spendthrift trust in context rather than treating it as a replacement for either.

An LLC is primarily a liability shield for the business activity inside it: it separates a rental property’s risk from an investor’s personal assets, but it does very little for estate planning or tax deferral on its own, and a single-member LLC often provides weaker asset protection than investors assume. A revocable living trust, meanwhile, is built mainly to avoid probate and control how assets pass at death — but because the grantor retains full control over a revocable trust, it offers little to no protection from creditors during their lifetime, and it doesn’t change how capital gains are taxed.

A properly structured spendthrift trust is aimed at a different gap: protecting assets from creditors during the investor’s lifetime while also creating a legal framework that can affect how gains are recognized. That’s why Sally frames it as a complement to — not a replacement for — the LLCs and living trusts investors may already have in place, rather than a single tool that does everything.

Frequently Asked Questions About Spendthrift Trusts for Real Estate Investors

Is a spendthrift trust only useful for wealthy investors? No. Sally’s own story started with a single life-changing financial setback, not existing wealth — the structure is aimed at investors, business owners, and 1099 earners who want to protect what they’re actively building, not only those who’ve already accumulated a large portfolio.

Does setting up a spendthrift trust eliminate capital gains taxes entirely? No. The strategy is about legal deferral and structuring, not elimination. How gains are ultimately treated depends on the trust’s specific structure, funding, and administration, which is why proper setup with qualified professionals is essential.

Can a spendthrift trust protect real estate from a lawsuit related to a rental property? That’s part of the appeal for investors specifically. Because the trust holds legal title and the spendthrift clause limits a beneficiary’s ability to assign trust assets, it’s designed to make those assets harder for a plaintiff or creditor to reach directly — though the strength of that protection depends heavily on correct drafting and administration.

How is a spendthrift trust different from a 1031 exchange? A 1031 exchange defers capital gains only if proceeds are rolled into another like-kind property within a strict timeline. Sally’s approach to the spendthrift trust is positioned as a separate deferral path that doesn’t require an investor to immediately buy a replacement property, giving more flexibility over how and when capital gets redeployed.

Key Takeaways From Sally Marie Gimon’s Approach to Wealth Protection

• A spendthrift trust uses a legal clause that restricts a beneficiary’s ability to freely access or assign trust assets, which is the source of its creditor protection.
• For real estate investors, the structure is positioned as a way to legally defer capital gains recognition outside the constraints of a 1031 exchange.
• Asset protection matters as much as tax deferral for investors carrying liability exposure from rental property.
• Proper drafting and funding by qualified professionals is essential — the benefits depend entirely on correct implementation.
• The structure can support multi-generational wealth transfer, not just a single investor’s tax situation.

About Sally Marie Gimon

Sally Marie Gimon is a real estate investor and insurance agent who specializes in Business and Beneficial Spendthrift Trusts, helping investors, business owners, and 1099 earners legally defer capital gains and protect their assets. Her own path into the niche began with a series of life-changing events in 2018 that pushed her to rethink how her wealth was structured. Connect with Sally on Instagram or YouTube.

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Recommended reading from this episode: The Power of Your Subconscious Mind by Joseph Murphy.

This information is not intended to be medical, legal, or financial advice. Please consult licensed professionals and do your own research before implementing any trust or tax strategy discussed here.

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