How Do I Fund a Living Trust?

A living trust is an estate planning tool that allows you to control how your assets are distributed to your beneficiaries when you, sadly, pass on. But to control how these assets are handled later on, you must place these assets into the trust itself now. With that being said, please continue reading to learn how to fund a living trust and how one of the experienced Butler County trust attorneys at Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC can help you do so in a way that makes it legally valid and enforceable.

How do I effectively fund a living trust?

Transferring your assets into your living trust may be easy enough. But your work does not stop there. That is, you must physically change the titles of your assets from your name to the name of the trust. You must also physically change the beneficiary designations of your assets from the names of your beneficiaries to the name of your trust. Only in this way may your assets seamlessly fund and flow into your trust, and subsequently into the hands of your actual beneficiaries, when the time comes.

If you do not take these proper steps toward funding your trust, your beneficiaries may be unable to avoid the expensive and time-consuming probate process upon your unfortunate passing. This is arguably one of the most important reasons you chose to establish a living trust in the first place.

What mistakes should I avoid making with a living trust?

Not effectively funding your living trust is likely the biggest mistake you can make with this estate planning tool. But we would be remiss if we did not warn you about the other possible mistakes, which read as follows:

• You must avoid choosing a trustee with a poor financial history or unreliable track record.
• You must avoid designating a successor trustee without getting their explicit consent to take on this role.
• You must avoid selecting beneficiaries that may cause a conflict of interest with your life insurance selections.
• You must avoid signing this trust document without fully understanding the extent of its terms and conditions.
• You must avoid leaving this trust document outdated, in that it includes assets you no longer own and not ones you recently gained.

Unfortunately, a lot can go wrong with attempting to establish a living trust on your own. We strongly advise you not to rely solely on online, do-it-yourself tools, regardless of how credible or highly recommended they are. Rather, we strongly encourage you to retain the services of one of the skilled Butler County estate planning & probate attorneys. You may do so by scheduling an initial consultation with Heritage Elder Law & Estate Planning, LLC at your earliest convenience.