Why You Need to Put Your Real Property Into Your Trust

One of the most common misunderstandings about Revocable Living Trusts is that simply signing the Trust document is enough. It is not. In order for your Trust to work properly, your assets actually need to be transferred into the Trust, especially your real estate.

If your home or other real property is not titled in the name of your Trust when you pass away, that property may still go through Probate. Probate can be time consuming, public, and expensive for your loved ones. One of the main reasons people create Trusts is to avoid that process.

Transferring real property into your Trust is usually done through a deed, transferring ownership from you individually, to yourself as Trustee of your Trust. You still maintain full control of the property during your lifetime, but the Trust becomes the legal owner for estate planning purposes.

At our office, we make this process easy. When you come in to sign your estate planning documents, we also prepare the deeds necessary to transfer your real property into your Trust. We then ensure the deeds are properly recorded with the county, and this service is included in our flat fee Estate Planning package.

Creating the Trust is only the first step, properly funding the Trust is what makes the plan effective.