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Mary Smith (a fictional person) dies with several brokerage accounts and a living revocable trust. The trust has several brokerage accounts also. The name of the trust is Smith Living Trust. Now, estate accounts have to be opened for Mary Smith's accounts.

For her individual accounts, is it okay (legal/proper) to use the name: Mary Smith Estate

For accounts owned by the trust, is it okay (legal/proper) to use the name: Smith Living Trust Estate

If these names are not proper/legal to use, what would be proper/legal to use?

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  • Who is Joe Smith?
    – Dilip Sarwate
    Jul 16 at 3:46
  • I need to edit the question. Joe Smith should be Mary Smith.
    – Bob
    Jul 16 at 3:53

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The trust account names should be titled as per the trust document. It should be spelled out in the trust document explicitly.

For the estate it should probably be defined in the probate documents.

Names should match perfectly. Do not add or remove anything. I recently had a problem because I had a trust named "The Trust Name" and a bank titled the account as "Trust Name" omitting the "the". Do not add "Estate" to the trust account titles, since the trust name doesn't change, only its status changes (from revocable to irrevocable).

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  • For a living trust, when the grantor dies, the grantor of the trust does not change, right?
    – Bob
    Jul 16 at 4:03
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    Right, the grantor doesn't change, the beneficiary doesn't change (other than the grantor), the name doesn't change. Status changes, trustee may change (if the grantor was the trustee), tax id changes (irrevocable trust has to have its own ein)
    – littleadv
    Jul 16 at 4:42

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