I Just Signed My Trust-Now What?

Law Office of Robert P. Newman

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EstateCast aims to educate about estate planning. After signing a living trust, it's important to review the documents for any mistakes and have them corrected. Notify successive trustees and retitle probate assets into the trust to avoid probate. Stay in touch with your attorney for major life events that can impact your estate plan. Contact EstateCast for more information or to discuss your own estate plan. Welcome to EstateCast, I'm Robert Newman. Our goal at EstateCast is to educate and inform you about estate planning and how it can give you and your loved ones peace of mind. Today's topic, I just signed my living trust, now what? Even though we discussed it during their document signing, I often have clients call me asking, now what do we do? This is a great question because it's an unfortunate waste of money and time to not fully complete the process. So what are the next steps? First, review all your documents. Living trust in estate plans are created and signed without being read word for word. Spend some time doing that and if you have any questions or had an attorney prepare these documents, call them for clarity. If you find any mistakes, have them corrected at no charge, assuming the mistake was the attorney's fault. If you provide incorrect or inaccurate information or change the mind, you should expect the attorney to charge a small fee for those changes. Next, please make sure you notify your successive trustees that they are your successive trustee and let them know where they can find the documents. Typically, everything should be in a comprehensive binder, readily accessible when needed. Third, and arguably most important, make your trust valuable. Fund it. Fund it means retitling your probate assets into the trust. By doing this, you'll avoid probate, which was probably one of the primary reasons you created trust to begin with. Your trust will only be as good as your ability to fund it during your lifetime. This means that if you fail to retitle your probate assets into the trust, the trust will do nothing for your estate and will be only worth the paper it's printed on. Make it a priority to retitle your assets as soon as reasonably possible. After all, tomorrow is promised to no one. If you do not have time or patience to do this, call the attorney who prepared your trust and ask them to help you or to do it for you. Again, there may be a charge for the service, but it is well worth it. And finally, stay in touch with your attorney, especially if there are any major changes or life events in your life, such as getting a new job, retiring, the birth of a child, a child reaching the age of majority, buying or selling real estate, the death of a spouse or successive trustee, et cetera. Each of these can have a major impact on your estate plan and your attorney can help you, your family, and your loved ones stay protected. Hope you learned something new today. If so, please like, share, and subscribe. As always, if you want additional information or to discuss your own estate plan, call us at 301-892-2713. That's 301-892-2713. Or you can reach us at our website, www.estatecast.com. That's www.estatecast.com. We know that life is precarious. Our goal is to give you peace of mind and help you live with your bags packed. We never know what tomorrow may bring, so let's get prepared. Thank you.