How to Change Beneficiaries of an Irrevocable Living Trust in California
In California, all trusts are revocable unless the settlor -- trust creator -- states otherwise. Making the trust irrevocable offers greater asset protection in return for making the trust harder for the settlor to change. All valid non-charitable trusts in California must have beneficiaries. If you want to change beneficiaries on your trust -- add a new grandchild to the beneficiaries, for instance -- the California Probate Code gives you ways to do so, even if the trust is irrevocable.
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Instructions
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Read over the trust agreement. It's possible to write grounds for amendment into an irrevocable trust. If this trust includes such a provision, and it applies in your current circumstances, just follow the procedure.
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Look for errors in the trust document or changes in the beneficiaries' circumstance that might convince a court to reform the trust. If you discover that whomever typed up your declaration of trust omitted a beneficiary, for example, a court might agree that's a valid reason for changing even an irrevocable trust.
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Talk to the settlor and the beneficiaries if you can't find other grounds for a change. If everyone agrees that the trust needs to be modified -- the settlor wants to add a new grandchild as a beneficiary, for example -- then you can do it without any problems.
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File a petition in court if you don't have unanimous agreement. If you and a majority of the beneficiaries support the change, a judge will consider it, provided the change doesn't cause a substantial loss to the beneficiaries who oppose it. If you oppose a change that your beneficiaries unanimously support, they might be able to persuade a court to make the change despite your opposition.
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Tips & Warnings
If one of the beneficiaries is a minor, mentally incompetent or an unborn child, the court may appoint a guardian ad litem to represent his interests.
If the trust documents identify someone unborn as a beneficiary -- and therefore possibly entitled to representation -- "the presumption of fertility is rebuttable." Meaning someone in the case can challenge the assumption that the individual will ever be born.
If a trust loosely defines the beneficiaries as the settlor's "heirs" or "next of kin" a judge can limit the number who must be consulted about a change to the heirs most likely to inherit.
