“What assets or property go into my trust?”

Jan 3

This answer may depend on what type of trust you have or whether you have a joint trust or separate trust from your spouse, but generally the primary asset you want to transfer into the trust is your real estate.

By transferring your home, vacation property, and rental properties into the trust, you ensure they’ll avoid probate.

Other common assets to transfer to your trust include business ownership - either through an assignment of LLC membership interests or the transfer of shares held in a corporation.

Once again, by doing these transfers you make sure nothing goes through probate court and everything remains private.

With respect to financial accounts, retirement accounts, and life insurance - clients will often update the beneficiaries to name the trust as the pay-on-death or transfer-on-death beneficiary.

However, in certain scenarios, you may also want to do a “re-titling” of certain financial accounts. Retirement accounts cannot be retitled into your trust because of income tax implications.

Other property like tangible personal property may be assigned to your trust - for example, artwork, furniture, jewelry, or other sentimental items. But an assignment of tangible personal property doesn’t work for cash or for transferring your vehicles or boats to the trust.

If you want to transfer a vehicle or boat to your trust, you should first check with your insurance agent to see if it will affect your rates.

In Massachusetts, clients don’t typically register their vehicles in the name of their trust, but in New Hampshire, it is common practice to do so.