When you establish a properly funded trust in a revocable way, you maintain the ability to update this trust or terminate it in the future. One of the most common reasons to work with an estate planning attorney to create a trust is to avoid probate. If you eliminate the trust, you may be able to eliminate any provisions that are associated with specific areas of concern.
However, you may also create a probate estate that could have been avoided by leaving the overall structure of the trust in place to begin with. If you choose to revoke a funded trust, you should always run this decision by an experienced estate planning lawyer.
Think carefully about the pros and cons of revoking a trust before doing it, that way you’re clear on what’s being accomplished and what other problems may be created through the elimination of the trust.
It is essential to follow the additional step of defunding your trust. This means that you must remove any real estate or other assets and retitle them from the trust. If you miss any of these assets that were initially titled into the trust, this could cause problems.
It can be very difficult to identify and determine ownership, particularly if your loved ones and executor are the people sorting through this after you pass away. When revoking a trust, verify that you have followed all necessary steps by working with an estate planning attorney in Pasadena.