Funding Your Living Trust
Once you’ve signed and notarized your trust, you’ll “fund your trust”–transfer ownership of your assets into the trust.
- We will transfer your home and any other real property to your trust by preparing and recording deeds for this purpose.
- To transfer your accounts and other assets, you physically contact your financial institutions to change the titles of your assets from your individual name to the name of your trust.
Your trust becomes the owner. Without funding your trust, it is a meaningless document.
What assets belong in a trust?
- Bank accounts and real property belong in your trust.
- Stocks, bonds and other investment assets. LLCs belong in a trust, as does cryptocurrency. What doesn’t belong in a trust? A life insurance policy.
What about those items without formal titles or deeds?
There are often items that families pass down through generations. They can include things like clothing, furniture and jewelry that are being passed on to family members.
If there are sentimental items or if there is potential for disagreement, it’s a good idea to identify these items in the trust and a recipient for each item. While there’s no formal title, it’s still important to transfer these assets to the Trust. This is usually easily done by signing a general transfer document that states the property is now owned by the trustee of the trust and should be kept with the trust records.
It’s Not Enough to Create a Living Trust: It Has to Be Funded