Funding Bank Accounts After You Have Created a Trust

There are three ways you can fund bank accounts into a Revocable Living Trust. The first way is to simply add your Trust as the pay-on-death (POD) beneficiary. By using a POD designation, your account remains in your individual name(s). The account does not become part of the Trust until all named owners on the account have passed away.

The second way to fund bank accounts is to transfer the title of your account to the name of your Living Trust. To accomplish this, a new signature card needs to be signed with the bank. Even though changing the title of your account works best for certain situations and certain types of accounts, most often, adding your Living Trust as the POD beneficiary will be the simplest way to fund the account to your living Trust. When you change your checking account to the name of your Trust, most banks now will require you close your existing account and order new checks. That means any existing autopayments that you have going out of that account would need to be set up again.

The last way to fund a bank account to your Trust is by executing an Assignment of Checking account. This transfers and assigns rights that you have to a listed bank account to your Trustees of your trust (both current and successors).

We utilize all three of these methods depending on individual needs, goals, and circumstances of our clients. If you open up a new account or have questions about funding instructions for a previous account, you are always welcome to reach out to our office to find out the best way to make sure your bank accounts make it into your Trust.