Simple Revocable living Trusts

There are many tools available to protect your assets from probate. A revocable living trust allows you to “title” assets into your trust, thus avoiding the probate process upon your passing. Although similar to a will, a trust requires you to change the title to your asset from yourself to you as trustee of your trust. In doing so, this will protect your assets from probate. Consider a trust like a box; when you first form a living trust, it’s an empty box, a legal entity without ownership of anything until you transfer your property into it. You must transfer your assets (cars, houses, personal property) into the box; once in the box, they’re protected from probate. In the most simplistic terms, the trust cannot give away what it does not own.

  • Anything owned by the trust is not subject to probate.
  • Trust assets are not protected from creditors unless the trust is an irrevocable trust.
  • The person in charge of your trust after you pass is called Successor Trustee. You can have more than one Successor Trustee if you wish.
  • You can title real property, bank accounts, retirement accounts, vehicles — even list caregivers for your pets — into a trust, as well as personal property if you choose.
  • Generally, a revocable living trust can be amended (changed) and revoked (cancelled).

A simple revocable trust provides peace of mind for you and your family to ensure your assets will be protected, as well as creating a simple tool to transfer your assets to your beneficiaries upon your death.

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Click on the Contact button for more information about creating your simple revocable living trust!

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  • Step 1: Meet

    The first step to creating your trust is to schedule a meeting. This is where I will explain, in detail, how your trust works and what steps you’ll need to take in order to fund your trust. During our meeting, I’ll provide you questionnaires (aka ‘homework’) for you to fill out. The questionnaires provide me the information I need in order to move forward and create your actual trust document.

  • Step 2: Your Draft Documents

    Once I receive the questionnaires back, I’ll create draft documents for you that will allow you to really see what your trust will say. This is where you can make any changes before the final documents are created. You can take as long as you need during your review process.

  • Step 3: Signing Your Final Documents

    Once you’ve reviewed your draft documents, I’ll create and print your final documents, as well as schedule the date of signing. Once your documents are signed, you now have a trust! After your trust is signed and notarized, you’ll receive the original documents for your files, as well as digital files of your fully-executed documents.

  • Step 4: Fund your Trust

    Funding your trust is vitally important in order to keep your assets out of probate! You must take the time to transfer titled assets (real estate, vehicles, bank and investment accounts, etc.) from yourself as an individual TO yourselves in your new capacity as Trustee(s) of your trust — if you don’t, the items won’t pass under the terms of the trust document (in other words, the trust cannot give away what it does not own). For each item, you must use the appropriate transfer document: For example, to transfer real estate, you must use a deed; for a vehicle, you must go to the motor vehicle department to do a title transfer; for a bank account, you must go to the bank and re-title the account from yourselves into your trust name.