Double Check your Trust Funding and Beneficiary Designations

If you have a trust prepared or revised by our office, then we have discussed with you previously the need to fund your trust. That usually is accomplished by actually titling assets, including one or more financial accounts, to the name of your trust, or using the name of your trust as the trust beneficiary. Circumstances may vary from case to case.

Did you know that financial institutions can in effect lose your previous authorized account beneficiary designations to your trust, or even to your non-trust beneficiaries, such as to your own individual family members? This can be caused due to financial institution mergers, consolidations, or internal account systems and records changes. It’s nothing that you necessarily did wrong as a consumer, but it still is something that may impact you and your estate plan nonetheless. Often this occurrence results in an otherwise unnecessary Florida probate proceeding upon your or your spouse’s death. This is a current local concern to Grady and our law firm.

So be on the safe side and timely and regularly double check your trust funding account ownership, titling of accounts, use of your trust as an account beneficiary when desired or recommended, and even the naming of your own family members as primary and secondary account beneficiaries for non-trust planning, with your own financial institutions.

If it has been more than three (3) years since your last estate planning appointment with our office, please call our office at 904-264-8800, to schedule a full estate planning review consultation with Grady. Laws change, accounts change, assets change, and the client’s own individual circumstances change with time. There’s no time like the present to update your plan to ensure that your most current wishes are carried out at the time of need.

Our compassionate and caring Elder Law and Estate Planning Attorney is here for you, and he is sensitive to you and your family’s needs and concerns.

Grady has the knowledge, experience, and empathy necessary to guide you in preparing a Will or Trust, or in legally representing you in a Probate or Trust Administration. If you have any concerns about Wills, Trusts, Power of Attorney, Designation of Health Care Surrogate, or managing the costs of long-term care, please do not delay. Call us today at (904)264-8800, and set up an appointment.

Grady H. Williams, Jr., LL.M.: Your Florida First Coast Elder Law Attorney.