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Blogs from September, 2020

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Trusts—as opposed to wills—are more like contracts and are designed to not have to be proven in court. If they don’t have to go to court, then they generally don’t have to adhere to a particular state’s laws. However, there are some exceptions, particularly:

  1. If you’re moving to a state that has an income tax from a state that doesn’t (or vice versa), you might want to update some of the provisions in your trust.
  2. If you’re moving to a state that has inheritance tax from a state that doesn’t (or vice versa), you might want to update some of the provisions in your trust.
  3. If you’re moving to a community property state from a state that is not (or vice versa), you might want to update how your property is defined and distributed.

If there are changes that need to be made to a particular provision of your trust, most of the time this can be done with an amendment to your trust, so that you can tweak it without having to throw it all out and start from the beginning. 

You should make sure that any new assets you acquire in the new state (particularly, a new house) are purchased the name of the trust. The same is true for bank accounts. It is best to establish new bank accounts in the name of trust. If you forget title new assets in the name of the trust, make sure that they’re retitled or have the trust as the payable on death beneficiary.

It should also be noted that, often, ancillary documents (like Power of Attorney or Medical Authorizations or guardianship) are created with trust packages. If you have Power of Attorney documents created in a state other than Texas (or created in Texas prior to 2014), you will probably want the new type that was established to be statutorily uniform by the Texas legislature. Other ancillary documents might need to be Texas-specific to avoid confusion while you live here in Texas. If you have any questions as to whether or not your current documents are still working in your best interest, schedule an appointment with one of our attorneys.

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