# Trust Funding Tracker

> Select your assets and get a personalized checklist showing how each one gets into your California living trust. Track your progress. Free.

Source: https://ridleylawoffices.com/trust-funding-tracker/

Loading the 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](https://ridleylawoffices.com/guides/trust-funding/)
- [Trust Health Check](https://ridleylawoffices.com/trust-health-check/)
- [Trust Checkup (AI review)](https://ridleylawoffices.com/trust-checkup/)
- [The 12 Defects We Find in Online Trusts](https://ridleylawoffices.com/guides/online-trust-defects/)

## Want a straight read on where you stand?

Talk to Eric. A free 30-minute call, no pitch. He'll tell you where you're exposed, what it would cost to fix, and whether you actually need a lawyer for this.

[Talk to Eric](https://app.lawmatics.com/forms/share/345a2f20-b321-4eed-8a15-db3c88789bd8)

## Why funding matters

A trust that is not funded is just an expensive stack of paper. Read [Trust Funding in California](https://ridleylawoffices.com/trust-funding/) to understand what needs to move into the trust and what happens if it does not.

## What happens to an asset you leave out

An asset that never made it into the trust doesn’t quietly follow the trust’s instructions. It sits in your individual name, and at your death it passes the way untitled property passes: by will if you have one, by California’s intestacy rules if you don’t. Either route runs through probate once the total of your non-trust assets clears $208,850.

That’s the expensive version of a paperwork problem. On a $700,000 house left out of the trust, statutory probate fees run about $34,000 in attorney and executor compensation, and the case takes twelve to eighteen months. The trust you paid for sits on the shelf while the asset it was supposed to cover goes through the exact process the trust existed to avoid.

There is a repair. If you can show the court you intended the asset to be in the trust, a petition under Prob. Code § 850, usually called a [Heggstad petition](https://ridleylawoffices.com/guides/heggstad/), can confirm trust ownership without full probate. It works when the evidence is there: a Schedule A listing the property, a general assignment, an executed deed that never got recorded. It’s still a court proceeding with filing fees and a hearing, and it takes a few months. Cheaper than probate, and more expensive than funding the asset correctly the first time.

## Assets that should stay out of the trust

Funding isn’t a sweep-everything exercise. Some assets are worse off inside a trust.

**Retirement accounts.** IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and similar accounts should stay in your own name with a beneficiary designation. Retitling a retirement account into a living trust is treated as a distribution, which triggers income tax on the entire balance in the year it happens. Name people as primary beneficiaries. A trust can be named as beneficiary in specific situations, such as a minor or a beneficiary receiving public benefits, but that’s a drafting decision, not a funding step. Run the [Beneficiary Designation Audit](https://ridleylawoffices.com/beneficiary-designation-audit/) to see whether your current designations still match your plan.

**Health savings accounts and most annuities.** Same reasoning. These carry their own beneficiary machinery and their own tax treatment.

**Vehicles.** California allows a transfer-on-death process for vehicles through the DMV, and most cars fall under the small-estate affidavit threshold anyway. Retitling a car into a trust can complicate insurance without buying much.

**Accounts you’re about to close.** If a bank account exists only to hold a few hundred dollars until you move it, funding it is wasted effort.

## Frequently Asked Questions

### My trust was signed years ago. How do I tell whether it was ever funded?

Look at the title on the assets, not at the trust document. Pull the grant deed for your home from the county recorder and read the vested owner. Check the account registration on your bank and brokerage statements. If the deed still says your individual name, or the statement still says your name without the trust, that asset isn’t funded. The tracker above walks you through it asset by asset, and [the funding checklist](https://ridleylawoffices.com/guides/trust-funding-checklist/) covers the paperwork for each type.

### Does my attorney fund the trust, or do I?

It depends on what you were quoted. At Ridley Law the flat fee includes the deed that transfers your California home into the trust, because that’s the asset that drives probate exposure and it’s the one people most often get wrong. Bank and brokerage accounts you retitle yourself, and I give you written instructions for each institution. Ask any attorney directly which assets they’re handling and which are yours. The gap between what a client assumed and what the engagement covered is where most unfunded trusts come from.

### I refinanced my house. Did that take it out of the trust?

Often, yes. Many lenders require the property to be held in your individual name at closing and then hand back a deed transferring it into the trust afterward. Plenty of borrowers never record that second deed. If you’ve refinanced since the trust was signed, pull the current deed and confirm what it says. This is the single most common way a funded trust quietly becomes an unfunded one.

### What about property I buy after the trust is signed?

Take title in the name of the trust at purchase. The vesting line on the deed should read the way your existing trust property reads, typically your name as trustee of the trust, with the trust date. Doing it at closing costs nothing. Fixing it later means another deed and another recording fee.

### Does moving my house into the trust reassess my property taxes?

No. A transfer into your own revocable trust isn’t a change in ownership for property tax purposes, and it doesn’t trigger reassessment or documentary transfer tax. Your homeowners’ exemption stays. This is settled and routine. What does affect reassessment is what happens at your death, which [Proposition 19](https://ridleylawoffices.com/prop-19-planning/) changed in 2021.

### Is a pour-over will enough to catch what I missed?

It catches it, but not for free. A pour-over will directs anything left in your name into the trust at death. To do that it has to be admitted to probate first. So the will is a backstop that works and costs money, not a substitute for funding. Treat it as the safety net, not the plan.

### How often should I check?

Once a year, and any time you buy property, open an account, refinance, or change banks. The tracker takes a couple of minutes. If your situation has changed enough that you’re unsure whether the trust still fits, the [44-point trust checkup](https://ridleylawoffices.com/trust-checkup/) reads the document itself.

Questions about your own funding, call [805-244-5291](tel:8052445291). The first 30 minutes are free, and if the answer is that you’re fine, I’ll tell you that.