- Jurisdiction
- California
Hi. My wife and I just had our trust drawn up, so now we are working on funding. Our lawyer gave us pretty clear instructions, but in some cases the wording just seems a bit odd to me. I'm not doubting it's correct, but I'm the type of person that wants to understand "why" as much as I want to understand "how".
The first is the wording for titling our financial accounts. The wording is "JOHN DOE AND JANE DOE, trustees of the DOE REVOCABLE TRUST DATED OCTOBER 14, 2021". I did some searching and this seems pretty standard. However, when I read this literally, it seems to title to John Doe and Jane Doe, not to the trust. Why are the trustees even mentioned and how does mentioning them as they are still result in titling to the trust and not John and Jane Doe? How is this any different than something like "JOHN DOE AND JANE DOE, residents of 123 MAIN STREET", or some other wording that describes who John and Jane are?
The second is the wording for specifying our trust as beneficiary for our life insurance policies. The wording is "the then acting trustee of THE DOE REVOCABLE TRUST DATED OCTOBER 14, 2021". He also suggested this wording to specify the trust as POD beneficiary for any smallish bank account that we use regularly. My guess is the reason for using POD instead of titling is to simplify check writing, but I'm not really certain. In any case, this once again seems to leave the assets to the trustee, not the trust. Also, it's not clear what happens if there are multiple co-trustees.
Thanks for your help!
The first is the wording for titling our financial accounts. The wording is "JOHN DOE AND JANE DOE, trustees of the DOE REVOCABLE TRUST DATED OCTOBER 14, 2021". I did some searching and this seems pretty standard. However, when I read this literally, it seems to title to John Doe and Jane Doe, not to the trust. Why are the trustees even mentioned and how does mentioning them as they are still result in titling to the trust and not John and Jane Doe? How is this any different than something like "JOHN DOE AND JANE DOE, residents of 123 MAIN STREET", or some other wording that describes who John and Jane are?
The second is the wording for specifying our trust as beneficiary for our life insurance policies. The wording is "the then acting trustee of THE DOE REVOCABLE TRUST DATED OCTOBER 14, 2021". He also suggested this wording to specify the trust as POD beneficiary for any smallish bank account that we use regularly. My guess is the reason for using POD instead of titling is to simplify check writing, but I'm not really certain. In any case, this once again seems to leave the assets to the trustee, not the trust. Also, it's not clear what happens if there are multiple co-trustees.
Thanks for your help!