what happens to existing accounts with a new living trust

Question

If you have a living trust in the United States, and some financial accounts are registered under that title, and now you "update" your trust what happens to existing accounts with a new living trust? Do you have to re-submit new title pages? Can you have two different trusts, say one at one bank and another trust at another bank?

The lawyer that created the original trust recommends redoing the old trust. Situation has changed, better language, laws change, etc. (more fees?), but I'm curious how this works with regards to banks, etc. I know I can call them, but in case somebody has done this, I'd like to hear about it. I've found that every person that I talk to at a bank has a different view of how their institution handles trusts. It's always painful...

Answer 1

The simplest way is to do what your lawyer recommended: say that you have created a(first, or second, or third....) re-statement of the trust even if you have gutted the whole original (or previous) document with new successor trustees, new beneficiaries, etc. That way, the trust name stays the same, and all that changes in the title is that after Dated 4/1/20xx it says Re-stated 12/19/2017 or something similar. You may need to provide a copy of the new title page and possibly the second page where the successor trustee is named. It is relatively painless.

I would recommend against having two different trusts to hold the assets in two different banks. Most living trusts are designed to make the will a relatively simple document, and to keep your testamentary instructions private. How you dispose of your assets is described in the trust document and not the will; the latter becomes a publicly available document once it is probated.