Funding Your Trust
Writing a trust is only half the battle. Once the trust is written, all designated assets of the settlor or grantor must be moved/retitled into the name of the trust. To take a simple example, if you write a trust for the benefit of your children and want your house to be distributed to them upon your death, you must change the title of the house so that the trust is, in effect, the owner. Thus, in California, proper trust funding in this hypothetical situation would include executing, notarizing, and recording a new grant deed in the name of “the Trust” with the county recorder where the property is located. The owner grants the property to the trust, and this is reflected in their respective titles– grantor and grantee. This would hold true for most real property assets that you intend to be part of the trust.
