The 12 Defects We Find in Online Trusts

What’s inside the guide

• The 12 specific defects we see most often when we review a trust that was bought online or filled out from a template
• How to check your own trust against each one, the way we do it when a client hands us one
• Why the document you signed is usually the smallest part of the problem
• What “everything around the trust” means in practice, and why it decides whether the trust actually works
• What to look at before you count on a trust you already have

Is a trust I bought online or filled out myself legally valid in California?

The document itself can be properly signed and, on its face, look like a complete trust. That is not the same question as whether it does its job. A trust is only as good as what happens after signing: the right assets have to be moved into it, the right people have to be named and told, and the plan has to reflect California rules rather than a generic template. A valid signature does not guarantee a working plan.

Does an online trust avoid probate for my house automatically?

No. A will requires probate to take effect; it does not avoid probate on its own, and neither does a trust that only exists on paper. Only a funded revocable living trust, meaning the house and other assets have actually been retitled into the trust’s name, passes to beneficiaries outside of probate. A trust that was never funded does not avoid probate for whatever was left out of it, no matter how well the document itself was written.

What happens when the person who made the trust dies?

Once a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, which typically happens at the grantor’s death, the trustee has to send formal notice to all beneficiaries and legal heirs within 60 days, and that notice opens a 120-day window during which the trust can be contested. An online trust rarely tells the successor trustee this deadline exists, let alone how to meet it, which is exactly the kind of gap that turns a fine-looking document into a real problem.

Not sure where your own trust stands. Start with our trust health check.