Trust Funding Tracker

What This Tool Does

Select which assets you own. The tool builds a personalized checklist showing exactly how each one gets into your California living trust, and lets you track your progress as you go.

Why Trust Funding Matters

The number one reason trusts fail in California is that they were never funded. Signing the trust document is only half the job. Every asset you want the trust to control has to be separately retitled, redesignated, or assigned into it. A trust that holds nothing avoids nothing, no matter how well it's written.

Think of the trust like a safe. The document creates the safe. It's built, it locks, it works exactly as designed. But it only protects what you actually put inside it. Most attorneys stop at the document, or hand you a list of instructions and leave the funding to you. Ridley Law's flat fee includes the funding itself, meaning we handle moving the home and the accounts into the trust rather than just telling you to do it.

Assets That Need Funding (and How)

Different assets get funded in different ways. Here's the short version for each category:

• Real property: A new deed, typically a grant deed or quitclaim deed, transfers title from you as an individual to you as trustee.
• Bank accounts: Retitle the account in the trust's name, or set up a payable-on-death (POD) designation naming the trust.
• Brokerage accounts: Retitle the account in the trust's name, or use a transfer-on-death (TOD) designation naming the trust.
• Retirement accounts: These use a beneficiary designation only. Never retitle a 401(k) or IRA into the trust's name directly.
• Life insurance: Update the beneficiary designation with the insurance company.
• Business interests: An assignment of interest transfers your ownership stake into the trust.
• Vehicles: Do not put vehicles in the trust. California's DMV transfer process handles these separately.
• Personal property: A general assignment covers furniture, jewelry, art, and other tangible items without titling each piece individually.
• Digital assets: These need documentation and an access plan rather than a formal transfer, so your successor trustee can find and manage them.

Common Funding Mistakes

• Refinancing the house without re-deeding it back to the trust afterward. Lenders routinely put title back in your individual name during a refinance, and it's easy to miss.
• Opening a new account after signing the trust and forgetting to title it in the trust's name.
• Naming individuals as beneficiaries on an account or policy when the trust should be named instead.
• Putting a retirement account in the trust's name directly. This can trigger unintended tax consequences and should never be done.
• Assuming the attorney funded everything. Ask for proof, in writing, of exactly what was retitled and what wasn't.

How to Check Your Funding Right Now

A quick self-check takes a few minutes:

• Pull your deed from the county recorder's website. Does it list your trust's name as the owner?
• Check your bank statements. Do they show your trust in the account title?
• Check your beneficiary forms with each financial institution. Do they name the right people or the trust, whichever the plan calls for?

If any answer is "I don't know" or "I'm not sure," that's the gap this tool helps you find.

Related Resources

• Trust Funding Checklist guide
• Trust Health Check
• Trust Checkup (AI review)
• The 12 Defects We Find in Online Trusts