If you have thought at all about estate planning, congratulations! You have already saved your family lots of hassle and expense. If you have set up a living trust, even better; you are very well prepared. However, even the best-laid plans sometimes change. When this happens, you might find yourself in the position of restating a trust.
As every well-prepared person knows, life is full of unexpected changes. You might find yourself with more assets, or maybe even more family members than you originally accounted for when you set up the trust. Your minor children may now be grown and you have new grandchildren. Restating a trust is the easiest way to make changes to your existing trust, and a legal document assistant (LDA) can help you with this and other estate planning documents.
What is Restating a Trust?
A restatement of trust is a modification to an existing trust. You can change almost everything about the trust, even naming different trustees and different beneficiaries, as long as the trust keeps the same name. A trust restatement is different from a trust amendment. Amendments are just for minor changes. If you have already filed several amendments and want to file more, restating a trust is the simplest way to do it. Restating your trust will update your trust to meet any new legal requirements under the law and make sure your documents are current.
Why Prepare a Restatement of Trust?
The most common reasons for restating a trust are to change successor trustees (the person who will be in charge of paying out money from the trust after you die) and to add beneficiaries (people who will receive money from the trust). Imagine that Mr. X set up a trust decades ago; he named his wife as a successor trustee. His wife dies, so Mr. X files a restatement of trust naming his son as the new successor trustee. Likewise, Mr. X created the trust before his youngest daughter was born; he wants to add her as a beneficiary, as well as his eight grandchildren. These major changes require a restatement of trust.
Restating a trust is easier than creating a new trust because you do not need to make any changes to the assets titled in the name of the trust. If you created a new trust, you would have to transfer the title of each asset to the new trust, which could be time-consuming and expensive.
You May Not Need to Hire a Lawyer When Restating a Trust
Restating a trust is a simple enough process that many people can do it without hiring an estate planning attorney. The process takes place by revising your estate documents using specific legal software for this purpose. With this in mind, it is essential for your documents to be accurate. Although you don’t need to hire an expensive estate planning lawyer, hiring an LDA is a great low-cost choice for preparing a restatement of trust. A registered legal document assistant (LDA) such as A People’s Choice can help you prepare your restatement of trust or other estate planning documents for a lower price than you would have to pay for a lawyer. With over 40 years of experience, we have helped thousands of individuals just like you prepare their trust restatement documents. Contact A People’s Choice about estate planning document preparation services.
Was this article helpful? We would love to know your thoughts! If you found this article helpful, please check the LIKE button below. Your feedback helps us plan topics for future articles.