Tips for Naming Your Living Trust

You know that you want to set up a living trust and have already established a relationship with an experienced estate planning attorney to help you get there.

Your living trust enables you to transfer property to the charities and people of your choice without having them go through the probate court supervised process. A trust avoids probate because the assets that are named inside the trust are not actually part of your estate but are owned by the trust.

When it comes to naming a trust, there are a couple of important things to keep in mind. In order for a trust to formally and legally hold property, whether it’s a business interest, brokerage account, a home or something else, the trust must also be identifiable. Its formal name is what is used to identify the trust.

You do not have to use your full family name to identify a living trust. The default is to use the family name or the person you’re hoping to honor through the trust, but this depends on your comfort level around privacy.

You may be concerned about privacy issues as well or a name might feel too long so you can always enlist the help of your experienced estate planning attorney to help you do it. When you name a trust, the name you choose for the actual title of the trust will be in the title of each asset inside the trust. The name of the trustee of that trust will be on the title of the trust assets.

People also often choose to shorten the name of the trust, such as the X family trust rather than the full name to allow for ease and greater levels of privacy. Schedule a consultation with a Plymouth, MI estate planning attorney who has extensive experience in creating and managing trusts so that you have peace of mind about your choice.