What does it mean to fund a trust?

What does it mean to fund a trust?

Attorney Gadi Zohar explains:

Funding a trust is actually very important. It means that you put your assets titled in the trust. Now, what does that mean? That means, in the case of real property, that you have a deed that you’ve recorded that transfers the house properly from your personal name into you as trustee of your trust.

It’s important. It’s important that you have an experienced attorney who’s going to make sure that there aren’t any title issues with the house when you transfer that into the trust. But also in general, it’s important to know that a trust is not just a piece of paper. A trust doesn’t exist unless it’s funded. A trust only exists if there’s property that the trust has control over. So that would be, like I said, the house that you titled in the trust, it would be transferring accounts into a trust.

When you create a trust with us, we will help you with the trust funding at the end of the process. We give you a comprehensive letter that talks about all your different assets and how they should be transferred into the trust.

It’s very important because if a trust is properly funded, that’s how you’re going to avoid probate and things are going to go smoothly when somebody else has to manage your trust assets for you, either due to your incapacity or your death.