Just Buried Movie

One day on your way home from work, you’re killed in a car accident. Because you have no will or trust, the laws of the state go into effect—a process called intestate succession. According to the state, your husband will own half the house, and your kids (who do not approve of him at all) will own the other half. If they wanted to, they could force him to sell his home. If nothing else, they could probably make him buy out their half, if they’re willing to give up their attachment to the house. In any event, they’ll all have to go through probate and come up with the money to pay the probate fees. Had the children been younger, the state would also have determined guardianship.
A trust specifying what you wanted would have been the best thing, a will second best, even with probate fees. Without either, your loved ones still have the probate fees and your wishes will have gone unheeded.

What good is an empty suitcase when you leave to go on vacation? Not much. Nor is an empty trust much good. By itself, the document establishing the trust means nothing until the trust assumes ownership of the things you intend to put into it.
Once the trust has been set up, in other words, your assets must be transferred into it. This means that if John and Jane Doe owned a house together in their own names, after they established their trust they would have a new deed issued that would list the owner as John and Jane Doe, trustees for the John and Jane Doe Revocable Living Trust. The Does would also change the titles on their stock portfolio, their insurance policies, bank accounts, and so on. Doing this is simply a matter of paperwork.
Computer programs and books about trusts provide sample letters to show you how to fund your trust. If you have a lawyer draw up your trust, he or she will have form letters available to show you. Or the lawyer can handle changing the titles for you; even if the fee is higher than that for simply drawing up the trust itself, it might be well worth it—different institutions have different requirements for making the change.
Failing to transfer assets into your trust can be costly. Let’s say, for example, that you were lucky enough to have a certificate of deposit at the bank worth $100,000. Put that CD into your trust, and though there might be estate taxes for your beneficiaries to pay, there would be no probate. Forget to put it into the trust? In the state of California that mistake would cost your beneficiaries $5,000. All assets that have a title on them— such as your bank account (both checking and savings), brokerage account, certificates of deposit, Treasury instruments, and all accounts that have your name on them—need to be transferred into the name of the trust. Every institution has a form that it uses to make this transfer easier for them. Make sure, if your lawyer is not doing this for you, that you contact each place, get the correct paperwork, and fill it out immediately to make the transfer.

It’s called a trust because you are trusting this entity to take care of your assets for you and to carry out your wishes when you can no longer do so for yourself.
Living: It’s called this because the trust is going to be set up while you are alive and will also live on after your death to carry out your wishes.
Revocable: Whoever is in charge of the trust—and it will usually be you—can change it at any time.