It is always a good idea to review your revocable trust to see whether it is up-to-date, especially when your life circumstances change. Three ways your revocable trust may be lacking are as follows.
1. Your Trust is Not Funded
Although you may have created your trust, you may have yet to take the crucial steps of re-titling assets. A trust is only effective if there are assets held within it. Remember, a trust is totally useless to avoid probate if it does not hold title to your assets.
2. Your Trust is Not Updated
It is a good idea to review and change your living trust when you’ve had a significant change in your life. These major changes could include: marriage; divorce; birth or adoption of a child; death of a beneficiary; having acquired new property that you want to add to the trust; or having moved to another state. Other changes include your desire to change a beneficiary or to add a beneficiary; or to change the trustee. This list is not exhaustive as there could be many other situations that will warrant changing your living revocable trust.
3. Your Trust is Not Aligned with Your Long-Term Care Needs
If you develop long-term care needs such that you require state assistance such as Medi-Cal, you may want to review whether your revocable trust is sufficient to allow you to be eligible or maintain eligibility for Medi-Cal. Non-exempt assets that fund a revocable trust are “countable.” Consequently, they may prevent you from being eligible for the long-term care benefits that Medi-Cal provides depending on whether your countable assets exceed the asset limits that Medi-Cal imposes.
If you have questions about updating your living trust, give us a call for a free consultation. We’ll be happy to hear from you.