You Set Up Your Revocable Living Trust. Is It Properly Funded?

If you have chosen a Revocable Living Trust (RLT) strategy to manage your assets, you may be surprised to learn that setting it up is not enough to avoid probate. You must fund your Revocable Living Trust for it to go into effect.

After expending the money and effort to have an estate planning attorney prepare the documents, you might be surprised to learn that trusts are not funded 99% of the time. To ensure all of your forethought pays off, you must determine whether your trust is funded and then take the appropriate actions to fund your trust. At TrustFunding.com, we are here to help you cross the finish line.

Your Revocable Living Trust Must Be Funded To Avoid Probate

An unfunded trust is a significant threat to your entire estate plan. If you have not funded your trusts, your efforts will be for naught. However, navigating funding requirements alone will overwhelm you, and you can’t be sure you have completed everything without a knowledgeable guide. Fortunately, you don’t have to figure it all out for yourself. At TrustFunding.com, we fund your trusts to ensure you avoid probate and carry out your wishes.

Funding Is The Most Important Step Concerning Your Trust

You took early strategic action about managing your assets without avoidable costs and confusion later. Many grantors are also the beneficiaries and trustees of their Revocable Living Trusts, specifying control over assets and preventing probate court processes that become public record. If you’re like most people, you chose a Revocable Living Trust for one or more of the following reasons:

• To avoid costly and time-consuming court processes
• To retain control over the distribution of your assets, avoiding probate
• To prevent interference involving spouses or divorce
• To protect assets for a surviving spouse
• To protect assets for children
• To prevent irresponsible spending or misuse of funds by beneficiaries
• To keep information regarding your assets and beneficiaries private instead of public
• To defer or reduce estate taxes
• To retain a level of control if you become incapacitated by choosing a trustee

You will not achieve your desired results if you do not act appropriately to fund your revocable trust.

How Your Revocable Living Trust Will Work Once it is Funded

A Revocable Living Trust goes into effect upon its funding, which entails transferring ownership of your assets from you to your trust. It will then be administered according to the terms of the trust. You must fund your trust before your incapacitation or death. Because life can be unpredictable, the sooner you fund your trust, the better.

You can alter or cancel a Revocable Trust until your death. It provides you, the living Grantor, with flexibility in managing the assets and adjusting to family circumstances or other life changes before your death results in the transfer of the property to your trust’s beneficiaries.

An RLT is a Living Trust because you create it during your life. You may modify it according to events involving people in your life. Because you retain control as the Grantor, the trust assets remain in your taxable estate.

Multiple generations can benefit from your continuing accumulated wealth through the professional management of your trust. You may specify limits to withdrawals to income and allow provisions for extraordinary emergencies in the trust’s terms.

Like most people, you will need to monitor your trust in response to life events involving births, deaths, or divorces. You may want to add future assets, including professional administration and review of trustee powers.

Revocable Living Trusts differ from the tax shelter benefits enjoyed in an Irrevocable Trust. In this sense, a Revocable Living Trust is not an estate tax planning tool. However, your trust documentation can include provisions to transfer wealth to a Credit Shelter Trust upon your death, such as a Marital Trust. It can also help reduce taxes for some large estates.

In the event of your death or incapacitation, beneficiaries (or secondary beneficiaries if you are the sole primary beneficiary) will receive your assets per the terms of your trust. The terms can control how beneficiaries will manage these assets, which may apply when leaving an inheritance for minor children, people with special needs or disabilities, or anyone you believe needs prudent guidance for asset management. This feature ensures the money fulfills its intended purposes and helps avoid squandering. You can disinherit specified people that pose a challenge to your established wishes.

You need to be secure in the knowledge that the assets in your Revocable Trust Fund are protected by scheduling a funding analysis. Through a free virtual consultation, we will discuss your goals and analyze what steps remain to fund your trust and make it work for you.

Imagine How Your Estate Plan May be Ruined if You Do Not Act To Fund Your Trust

If you do not fund your trust, you cannot be sure your assets will go to your designated beneficiaries. You run the severe risk of those assets going to creditors or others who may interfere during a potentially lengthy and expensive public court process. Such a disaster can not only cause your intended beneficiaries to lose out, but it can derail the legacy you have envisioned and built throughout your life.

Let TrustFunding.com Take Your Trust Across The Finish Line

Regardless of your state, we are ready to help you by ensuring your Revocable Living Trust is funded and ready to work for you. Fill out the form on our website to schedule a free funding analysis today. We will have a face-to-face virtual meeting to figure out what steps remain incomplete before proposing a path to fund your trust fully. Call us today at (248) 987-0400 to get started so that we can take your trust across the finish line.

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The information in this blog post (“post”) is provided for general informational purposes only and may not reflect the current law in your jurisdiction. No information in this post should be construed as legal advice from the individual author or the law firm, nor is it intended to be a substitute for legal counsel on any subject matter. No reader of this post should act or refrain from acting based on any information included in or accessible through this post without seeking the appropriate legal or other professional advice on the particular facts and circumstances at issue from a lawyer licensed in the recipient’s state, country, or other appropriate licensing jurisdiction.

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