If you need to make a change to your Revocable Living Trust; for example, naming a new Successor Trustee, or eliminating a single, specific provision, you’ll need a Trust Amendment. A Trust Amendment is a legal document that makes changes to certain parts of your Revocable Living Trust but leaves the rest of the provisions unchanged.

If you want to make changes to your trust, it’s important that you consult with your attorney and have him or her draw up a Trust Amendment for you to sign. Don’t just make handwritten changes to your original Trust Agreement – doing so won’t result in changing the terms of your trust, because, in order to be legally binding, any changes to your trust have to be signed with the same formality as the original agreement.

When you sign the Trust Amendment, the changes take effect as if they were in the original Trust Agreement. So, making a change to the terms of your trust does not necessarily undo essential actions that took place before the signing of the Trust Amendment. For example, any property you funded into the trust stays in the trust, and the name of the trust and the original effective date remain the same — the only alterations are those specified in the Trust Amendment.

Robert J. Kulas, P.A. Attorneys at Law is a member of the American Academy of Estate Planning Attorneys.

Tags: revocable living trust, trust amendment

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