Are you sure that your Revocable Living Trust is fully funded?
By Bill Griffith, Jr., CFP®
Many people mistakenly believe that the mere process of signing their revocable living trust will magically result in probate avoidance and tax savings. However, for many people, their trust funding is either incomplete or non-existent. In my view, the majority of living trusts will fail not because the trust has been improperly drafted, but because the trust is not fully funded. If you have a revocable living trust (RLT), it is critical that you understand the importance of trust funding and the impact on you and your family if your trust funding is incomplete.
Our firm specializes in working with clients who have a revocable living trust. By working with people who all have similar challenges and need similar services, we have been able to streamline our practice and provide them with the highest level of technical expertise to address their unique issues.
Traditionally, trust funding has been a labor and time intensive process. We recognized the inherent limitations of allowing our clients to self-fund their trusts long ago. In our firm, we have gone to great lengths to emphasize the importance of trust funding to our clients. By implementing a complete 12-Step Trust Funding System, we handle the many administrative details of the funding process. The purpose of implementing a complete funding system is to ensure that:
- Your estate planning objectives and proposed planning strategies will be met.
- Your current plan accounts for changing laws and changes in personal circumstances.
- New assets are re-titled to avoid the unintentional expense of probate.
- Your revocable living trust is funded properly by deciding in advance how you want to allocate your assets between the A Trust and B Trust (for married couples).
If you have a RLT, it is important to be able to track the value and the progress of the funding of each asset over time. Having a process for maintaining your trust funding is critical to the success of your estate plan. With our 12-Step Trust Funding System, we can track the funding of your trust over time and help you make any adjustments in the way you want your assets to be allocated (a licensed attorney will address any legal funding issues). Most importantly, we can help you keep your situation current. By keeping your situation current, you can ensure that your estate plan will work exactly the way you want it.
Please call us at 724.228.3440 to schedule a Preparatory Meeting to discuss our Trust Funding and Coordination Service, which includes ongoing funding reviews. We will take the extra care needed to ensure that your plans work as designed.
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