Funding Avoids Probate

Probate. In Living Trusts Do Not Avoid Probate, we discussed probate and living trusts. Probate is the court supervised process of transferring property after a person passes away and the property is in the name of the person at the time of death. The majority of people who die with assets have estates that have to go through probate; even though most people while they were alive did not want their loved ones to suffer through the costs, stress, delay and lack of financial privacy that is probate.

Living Trusts. A living trust is a legal entity you create when you sign a trust agreement with the required language and in some cases, when your transfer assets to the trust. Trusts are the first step to avoiding probate, but are not enough. To avoid probate, you have to take the second step to “fund” the trust.

Funding. Funding is the word that lawyers use to describe the transfer of assets to a living trust and the making the trust a beneficiary of qualified retirement plans and certain insurance contracts. My experience is that most non lawyers are not familiar with this use of this word. An example is where Ellen Smith signs a living trust agreement on Monday. On Wednesday, she goes to her bank, meets with an employee at one of the desks in the lobby and requests that the bank transfer the name of her account from her name individually to the name of her living trust. On the bank records, the name of her bank account was in the name of “Ellen Smith”. After the bank account is “funded” into the living trust, the name on the account will probably be “Ellen Smith, Tee (Trustee) utd (under a trust dated) 11/2/2009 (the date she signed the trust). Or, it may be “Ellen Smith Living Trust”.

Titling. The name of the owner of each asset of Ellen must be changed to the name of the trust for it to be in the trust. The title to her house, brokerage account, furniture, jewelry, vacation home, stocks, business and in some cases, insurance, must be changed to her trust. Each one of these assets has special rules as to how to complete funding. You do not transfer your pensions, IRAs or qualified annuities to your trust while you are alive, but do change the beneficiary designations of each of these accounts.

Bank Accounts. As an example, due to concerns about terrorists setting up bank accounts to finance terrorist attacks in the US, to change the name on your bank account to your trust, you have to physically go to the bank with your identification and all of the people who will be immediate trustees to sign the bank forms. An attorney can not do this for you. Some banks will make you open a new account in the name of the trust. Other banks will not make you open a new account, but will require that you obtain new checks with the name of your trust on your checking account. You would prefer not to have the name of your trust on your checks that go through all sorts of hands and businesses. Some stores are reluctant to accept checks from a trust because they think they may be business checks. You will prefer to work with a bank that does not require a new account or requires that you put the name of your trust on your checks. If one of your children or sister or brother is helping you with your banking now and is a co signer on your account, you will probably want to name that person a Cotrustee and they will have to go with you to the bank. Under IRS rules, because you have the legal power to revoke your trust at any time, you continue to use your social security number when your bank account is in the name of the trust.

Five Times the Insurance. There are many advantages to having a bank account in the name of your trust, rather than in your own name and the name of your cosigner. For example, in these times of failing banks, you can get five times the federal insurance against losing your money if you have your bank account in the name of your trust at no extra charge from the bank. More on this later.