Trust Health Check: Does Your Plan Actually Work?

Most people can’t tell a working estate plan from one that only looks like it. That isn’t a knock on you. The defects stay invisible until someone dies, which is the worst possible moment to find them.

Take the check below. It’s seven questions, about a minute, and close to the ones I’d ask you in a consultation. At the end you’ll see exactly which parts of your plan look solid and which ones have the gap that sends families to probate, the public court process that moves property when nothing is holding it.

What your answers mean

Every question here is a place where plans quietly break. A house that was never deeded into the trust. A beneficiary form that still names an ex-spouse and overrides the whole binder. An executor who has since died. A power of attorney you never signed, so a stroke would put your family in front of a judge.

None of these show up when you look at the documents. They show up when someone has to use them. That is the entire problem with estate planning: the part you pay for and the part that fails are not the same part.

The gap behind most of these

If you flagged the questions about the house, new accounts, or beneficiary forms, you found the most common defect of all. It is called funding, which just means actually moving your house and accounts into the trust’s name. A trust that owns nothing controls nothing. The document can be flawless and the family still ends up in probate, because the title never moved.

Funding is the part online services can’t do and high-volume mills skip. It is also the part I treat as the job, not an upsell.

Trust Health Check FAQs

How do I know if my living trust is any good?

Start with whether it is funded. Confirm the deed to your home is recorded in the trust’s name, your accounts are titled in the trust or coordinated with it, and your beneficiary forms match the plan. A trust that was signed but never funded is the most common and most expensive estate planning mistake in California.

Is my house actually in my trust?

It is only in the trust if a new deed was prepared and recorded moving it into the trust’s name. Being listed in a schedule of assets inside the trust binder is not enough. You can check the recorded deed with the county recorder, or have an attorney review it.

How often should I review my estate plan?

Every three to five years, and after any major change: a death, a divorce, a remarriage, a move to or from California, a new property, or a child who is now an adult. Plans don’t fail all at once. They drift out of date one life event at a time.

What should I do if this check flagged problems?

Bring it to a consultation. Most of what this check surfaces is fixable while you are alive and able to fix it, and a short conversation will tell you which items actually matter for your family and which you can ignore.

Related: see Trust Funding, Is your living trust actually funded?, Plan Review and Repair, and the plain-English glossary if any term here was unfamiliar.

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Written by Eric D. Ridley. Estate Planning Attorney at Ridley Law, serving Ventura County since 2010. Learn more about Eric →