To set up a trust fund, you choose a trust type (usually revocable or irrevocable), gather the identification and asset information your attorney needs, have the trust document drafted and signed in front of a notary, and then transfer ownership of your assets into the trust’s name. Attorney fees for a professionally drafted trust generally run $1,500 to $5,000, and the full process takes anywhere from a few weeks to several months, depending on how many assets you need to retitle. The payoff: property held in a properly funded trust skips probate entirely, keeping your estate private and moving assets to your beneficiaries faster than a will can.
Choose Between a Revocable and Irrevocable Trust
This is the first and most consequential decision. A revocable living trust lets you change the terms, swap beneficiaries, or dissolve the trust entirely at any time while you’re alive. You keep full control. On your death, the trust typically becomes irrevocable and the terms lock in.
An irrevocable trust generally cannot be altered once signed and funded. You give up direct control over the assets, and in exchange, the property is usually removed from your taxable estate. For 2026, the federal estate tax exemption is $15,000,000 per person under the extension enacted by the One, Big, Beautiful Bill Act signed in July 2025.1Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Estates below that threshold won’t owe federal estate tax regardless of trust type, though state estate taxes often start at much lower amounts.
Most people setting up their first trust pick a revocable living trust. It avoids probate, lets a successor trustee manage assets if you become incapacitated, and doesn’t require giving anything up during your lifetime. Irrevocable trusts tend to serve more specialized purposes: shielding assets from creditors, reducing estate taxes on large estates, or qualifying for Medicaid.
One tax wrinkle to note before you commit to an irrevocable trust: transferring assets into one counts as a gift. The 2026 annual gift tax exclusion is $19,000 per recipient, and transfers above that eat into your lifetime estate and gift tax exemption.1Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Transfers into a revocable trust don’t trigger gift tax, because you haven’t given up control.
Decide Who Fills Each Role
Every trust has three roles, and one person can hold more than one. The grantor (sometimes called the settlor) creates the trust and funds it. The trustee manages the assets and follows the instructions in the document. The beneficiaries receive the trust’s income or property.
With a revocable trust, you’ll typically serve as your own trustee during your lifetime. That means the real decision is picking a successor trustee, the person who takes over if you die, become incapacitated, or step down. If your primary trustee is unavailable and no successor is named, a court may appoint one. Choose someone organized, trustworthy, and willing to deal with paperwork, because the job is more administrative than glamorous.
Gather Information for the Trust Document
Before an attorney can draft the trust, pull together three categories of information.
First, verified identification for everyone involved: the grantor, trustee, successor trustee, and all beneficiaries. Social Security numbers are required for tax reporting, since the IRS uses taxpayer identification numbers to track trust income.2Internal Revenue Service. Taxpayer Identification Numbers (TIN) Current mailing addresses let the trustee communicate with beneficiaries as required.
Second, a detailed inventory of every asset you plan to put into the trust. Not “my house and bank accounts.” You need account numbers for financial accounts, the legal description for real estate (found on the deed), policy numbers for life insurance, and identifying details for valuable personal property like jewelry, art, or collectibles. The more precise this list, the smoother funding will be.
Third, your distribution instructions. These are the rules telling your trustee when and how beneficiaries receive assets. Some grantors use age triggers, like distributing a third of the trust at 25 and the rest at 30. Others tie distributions to milestones such as finishing college or buying a first home. You can also give the trustee discretion based on a beneficiary’s needs. Clear instructions prevent disputes later.
Draft and Sign the Trust
An estate planning attorney translates your decisions into a legally enforceable document covering the trustee’s powers and limitations, distribution schedules, successor trustee provisions, and any protective clauses you want to include. One such clause worth asking about is a spendthrift provision, which blocks a beneficiary’s creditors from reaching trust assets before they’re distributed and keeps the beneficiary from pledging or transferring their interest. It won’t stop every creditor (child support, alimony, and government tax debts can often still reach through), but for ordinary creditors it’s a meaningful shield.
Signing requirements vary by state, and trusts are easier to confuse with wills than they should be. Wills almost universally require witnesses and notarization. Trusts don’t always. The Uniform Trust Code, adopted in some form by most states, lets a trust be created by transferring property to a trustee or by a written declaration, without mandating witnesses for a living trust. Some states layer their own requirements on top.
Whatever your state technically requires, notarize the document. Banks, title companies, and other financial institutions are far more likely to accept the trust without pushback when it carries a notary seal. Most attorneys fold notarization into the signing session. If your attorney recommends witnesses, bring two adults who aren’t named as beneficiaries.
Fund the Trust by Retitling Your Assets
A signed trust that holds no assets does nothing. Funding, which means actually transferring ownership of your property into the trust, is the step that gives the trust its legal power. It’s also where most people stall, and an unfunded trust is one of the most common estate planning failures.
Real Estate
Transferring real property requires preparing a new deed, typically a quitclaim or grant deed, that changes ownership from your name individually to your name as trustee of the trust. The deed type varies by state. Once signed and notarized, record the deed with your county recorder’s office. Recording fees are generally modest, often around $100 per property, though they vary by county.
Bank and Investment Accounts
Financial accounts are retitled by contacting each institution and presenting a certificate of trust. This document summarizes the trust’s existence, the trustee’s authority, and the trust’s tax identification number without disclosing the private distribution terms. The bank then retitles the account in the trust’s name, usually formatted as “[Your Name], Trustee of the [Trust Name] Trust, dated [date].” Stock certificates and brokerage accounts go through the transfer agent or brokerage firm using a similar process.
Life Insurance and Retirement Accounts
Life insurance policies and retirement accounts like IRAs and 401(k)s pass by beneficiary designation, not by title. To direct these assets to your trust, contact the insurance company or plan administrator and name the trust as beneficiary. For life insurance, this is straightforward. For retirement accounts, be careful. Naming a trust as the beneficiary of an IRA or 401(k) can accelerate required distributions and create a compressed withdrawal timeline, which may mean higher income taxes for beneficiaries than if they’d been named directly. Talk to a tax advisor before naming a trust as the beneficiary of any retirement account.
Keep the Trust Using Your SSN While You’re Alive
During your lifetime, a revocable trust typically uses your personal Social Security number for tax purposes, and its income gets reported on your individual return.3ACTEC Foundation. Grantor Trusts: Tax Returns, Reporting Requirements and Options You don’t need to apply for a separate EIN at setup. That changes after the grantor dies, when the successor trustee applies for an EIN and the trust files its own return.
Add a Pour-Over Will as a Backup
Even with careful planning, some assets end up outside the trust. You might buy a new car, open a new account, or receive an inheritance and forget to retitle it. A pour-over will catches those stray assets by directing that anything not already in the trust at your death gets “poured over” into it.
The catch: assets passing through a pour-over will still go through probate before reaching the trust. The pour-over will is a safety net, not a substitute for properly funding the trust during your lifetime.
What It Costs
An attorney-prepared revocable living trust typically runs $1,500 to $5,000, with more complex estates and irrevocable structures pushing toward the higher end. Online legal services offer templated trusts for a few hundred dollars, but they lack the customization that protects against unusual family situations or state-specific quirks.
Beyond the drafting fee, budget for the incidental costs of funding. Deed recording fees for real estate run roughly $50 to $150 per property. Notary fees are usually under $25 per signature. Some financial institutions charge transfer or retitling fees; many don’t. If you’re working with an attorney, ask upfront whether the quoted fee includes help with funding, since retitling assets is where much of the real work happens and some attorneys treat it as a separate billable task.
Changing the Trust Later
A revocable trust can change as your life does. For a minor update, like adding a beneficiary or swapping a successor trustee, a trust amendment modifies the relevant sections and leaves the rest intact. When you’ve stacked up several amendments over the years, or when you need to overhaul the structure, a full restatement replaces the entire document with a new version while preserving the original trust name and creation date. That matters because every asset already titled in the trust’s name stays put, so you don’t have to re-fund anything. If you’re on your third or fourth amendment, a restatement is almost always cleaner.