You already know that estate planning tools, such as a will or a trust, are essential for outlining your wishes and for putting a plan in place to keep certain aspects of your estate private.
But what if you fail to take the necessary step in funding your trust, which often requires changing the title in the assets transferred into the trust to make them formally owned by that entity? This could be a catastrophic mistake that hurts your loved ones in the future if you intended for them to receive these assets through the trust.
The trust has to formally own all of the assets that are placed inside of it and it is not enough to simply state that the trust will be the owner of a certain asset. That asset must be looked at carefully and the title and/or deed updated such that it is clear that the trust owns it rather than the individual who created that document. There are a myriad of potential estate planning problems that can occur as a result of not having this information in place.
If your assets are not inside the trust in a titling sense, this means they could be accessed by the very people you intended to safeguard the assets from.
Scheduling a consultation with a trusted Pasadena estate planning law firm could be the first step towards helping you to figure out the necessary things you need to do to protect your assets and to ensure that each of them has been appropriately titled. You’ll want to get confirmation of this from an attorney.