How to Make a Drastic Amendment to a Living Trust
A living trust is a revocable trust that is put in place during the lifetime of the grantor. A living trust is under the control of state law and not probate law as is the case with wills. The grantor of a living trust retains the right to amend it at any time as well as the right to the income from the trust while they are alive. Amendments can be made at any time during the life of the grantor, but not by anyone else after their death.
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Instructions
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Download a living trust amendment kit from the Internet if you wish to carry out the process yourself as no formal proceedings are necessary to amend a living trust.
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Make any changes. Hand-written changes are not legally acceptable so type the amendments. The amendment is a new document that sets forth which sections of the trust have been changed and lays out all of the changes to be made. Integrate the changes with the old document. Type the changes onto the form and slot in the paragraphs from the old document that you want to retain where appropriate. You can do this yourself or hire a lawyer.
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Get the amendment signed by the grantors of the trust and the trustees.
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Tips & Warnings
Due to changes in tax laws, family situations, concerns about ill health and the future, it is advisable to get your trust reviewed by a lawyer to ensure that everything is legally in place. It is not necessary to notify financial institutions of changes to the trust or to change deeds if the title to the assets has been properly placed in the trust.
According to lawyer Jane Mcnamara, in the case of a drastic amendment, it may be simpler for you or your attorney to restate the entire trust from scratch rather than create a complicated trust amendment that may be difficult to integrate into the old living trust. The restatement will be a new trust in the form of a trust amendment, which will retain the date that the original trust was established in order to maintain prior funding as it was in the old trust. Download trust restatement forms from the Internet.
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- Photo Credit signing a contract image by William Berry from Fotolia.com
