Refinancing is a rewarding process and especially in today’s financial market. Many of us are in the process of refinancing our home, or have already gone through the process.
Refinancing can be a lengthy and somewhat frustrating process, some lenders require homeowners to remove their home from their trust and often times, the home never gets transferred back into the trust. Some lenders will put the house back into your trust, other lenders leave the process to you.
We urge our clients to follow through with their lenders in regards to this. It is important that you are proactive by asking the lender whether they will put the house back into their trust. If the answer is no, and you want our offices to put the home back into the trust then we require a copy the last recorded deed. Once we receive the paperwork from you we will then prepare the paperwork and will call you to come in to sign the new deed putting our home back into the trust. If you do not do this and your home is not in the trust and you die then your successor trustee will have to demonstrate to the court that it was your intention to title your home in the name of your living trust. To do so, a selection of your estate planning documents will be submitted to court as well as a listing of any assets which have been transferred to the trust providing evidence of your intent. A court order will be necessary before your trustee can take control of the asset, before the property can be sold, and before your estate can be distributed.
To keep your estate confidential and not in the court record, to keep your estate from expending unnecessary funds and to avoid a preventable burden on your successor trustees, please ensure that your home is correctly titled in the name of your living trust.
