Thanks for your feedback, from memory when I checked years ago Trusts work fine and are cheap to set up and manage in the US, but it is not the case in Continental Europe. I ll look further in the joint account, so far it is not clear to me how the right of Survivorship would work here, nor what tax implications are (does each of the party have to declare an equal split of the income from the joint account ?), but for a few years that might be more cautious than just hand over the money.