Wills And Estate
Revocable Living Trust Package
A revocable living trust with the documents that actually make it work — funding instructions, retitling letters, a certification of trust, and a pour-over will.
Available product levels
Complete Legal Packages
$99.99Multi-document workflows for complex legal matters.
When to use this document
- Keeping property out of probate and private
- Planning for someone to manage your affairs if you become incapacitated
- Property in more than one state, where probate would otherwise happen in each
- A plan you want to change over time without redoing everything
Information you will need
- Your details as grantor, the trustee, and successor trustees
- The beneficiaries and what each receives
- Assets to be transferred into the trust, and how each is currently titled
- Instructions for distribution, including on incapacity and death
- The institutions holding each asset
- The governing state
What you receive
- Trust planning worksheet
- Revocable living trust instrument
- Pour-over will
- Assignment of personal property to trust
- Certification of trust
- Trust funding checklist and instructions
- Institution retitling letters
- All seven as separate PDF or DOCX files
Special situations
- A signed but unfunded trust does nothing for assets that were never transferred into it. Funding is the step people skip, and skipping it means the trust controls nothing.
- The pour-over will catches assets you never moved into the trust — but those assets still go through probate first. It is a safety net, not a substitute for funding.
- Real property has to be retitled by a recorded deed. A letter or worksheet cannot change title, and an unrecorded intention transfers nothing.
- Retirement accounts are generally not retitled into a trust. Doing so can trigger immediate tax, and beneficiary designations are usually the right tool instead.
- A revocable trust provides no creditor protection during your lifetime. If that is the goal, this is the wrong instrument.
- A certification of trust lets institutions verify the trust without seeing its terms. Most will ask for one rather than the full document.
Jurisdiction
Trust validity, execution formalities, recording requirements for real property transfers, and the treatment of pour-over wills are set by state law and vary. This package reproduces no state's prescribed wording and states no threshold.
Frequently asked questions
What does funding a trust mean?
Actually transferring assets into it — retitling accounts, recording a new deed for real property, updating ownership records. A trust only controls what it owns. Signing the trust and stopping there is the single most common failure, and it leaves the entire plan doing nothing.
Does a living trust avoid probate?
For assets held in the trust, generally yes. For anything you never transferred in, no — those pass under the pour-over will and go through probate. Which is why the funding checklist matters more than the trust document.
Then why do I need a will as well?
The pour-over will catches whatever you did not transfer, and it is where you nominate a guardian for minor children, which a trust cannot do. It is a backstop, not an alternative.
Should I put my retirement accounts in the trust?
Usually not. Retitling a retirement account into a trust can trigger immediate tax consequences. Beneficiary designations are normally the right tool, and this is a question worth taking advice on rather than guessing.
Does a trust protect assets from creditors?
A revocable trust does not, during your lifetime. You retain control, so the assets remain reachable. Probate avoidance and creditor protection are different objectives requiring different instruments.
What is a certification of trust?
A short document confirming the trust exists, who the trustee is, and what powers they have, without disclosing the terms or beneficiaries. Banks and title companies generally prefer it to reading the whole trust.
Related documents and guides
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Last reviewed July 29, 2026.