A trust operates on some very simple principles that, even though they are easy to meet and understand, allowed you to provide yourself and your estate with some substantial legal protections and benefits. The most difficult part of deciding to create a trust is sitting down and determining what trust is best for your purposes. Whether you choose a revocable living trust, various kinds of irrevocable trusts, or even a testamentary trust, creating a trust inventory or schedule of assets can greatly help you ensure that the trust operates properly. We’re going to take a little time to discuss a trust schedule of assets in Florida and how you can use it when you create and use your trust.
Developing the Schedule of Assets
In Florida, every trust is there to own property on behalf of others, known as beneficiaries. The person who creates the trust, called the trustor or grantor, decides what property the trust should own. The trustor also gets to choose the trustee, the person who will manage the trust property once it’s been properly transferred into the trust name.
So, grantors deciding what property to transfer will have to create a schedule of assets that lists all the trust property. Initially, inventorying all of your personal property and then deciding what property should be transferred to the trust is beneficial. Then, once you have identified specific trust property, you can create a separate document that lists all the property the trust does, or will, own.
Using the Schedule as a Guide
Creating a trust by creating a document that states your purposes and identifies the important people involved is important, but the next step in the trust creation process is also vital. After you’ve identified the important parties in your trust and decided what property you wish to transfer, you have to go through the funding process. Funding is the process in which you transfer your personal property into the trust so the trust becomes the new legal owner.
The type of property you transfer to the trust dictates what steps you have to go through in order to make the trust the new owner. For example, transferring your car will require you to retitle the car into the trust’s name. Similarly, transferring real estate assets will require you to make similar transfers in accordance with the laws of the state in which the property is located.
As you go about the funding process, the schedule of assets will serve as your to-do list. With the schedule you can make notes about the kinds of steps you’ve taken to fund the trust, as well as identify other needed information.
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