To add property to a trust, you retitle each asset out of your individual name and into the name of the trust, using whatever transfer method that particular asset type requires. A signed trust document controls nothing on its own; it’s a set of instructions that only takes effect on assets actually held in the trust’s name. Anything you leave in your individual name is likely to pass through probate at your death, which is usually the outcome the trust was created to avoid.1Legal Information Institute. Funding a Trust
The steps below walk through each major asset category, because the paperwork for a house is nothing like the paperwork for a brokerage account or a cryptocurrency wallet.
What Belongs in the Trust and What Doesn’t
Most things you own can be transferred in:
- Real estate, including your home, vacation property, rentals, and vacant land.
- Checking, savings, money market, brokerage, and mutual fund accounts.
- Personal property such as vehicles, jewelry, art, collectibles, and household items.
- Business interests, including closely held stock, LLC membership interests, and partnership interests.
- Digital assets, including cryptocurrency and domain names.
- Intellectual property, such as patents, copyrights, and trademarks.
A few asset types should not be retitled into a trust while you are alive. Moving an IRA, 401(k), or similar retirement account into a trust counts as a distribution and triggers immediate income tax on the full balance. A health savings account loses its tax-advantaged status if ownership shifts away from the individual. For these accounts, you name the trust as a beneficiary instead of transferring ownership.
Adding Real Estate to the Trust
Real estate is usually the highest-value asset going into a trust, and it takes the most steps. The heart of the transfer is a new deed that moves ownership from you individually to you as trustee of the trust.
The Deed
Attorneys typically use either a quitclaim deed or a warranty deed. A quitclaim transfers whatever interest you have without warranting the title’s history and is simpler. A warranty deed includes assurances about the title and can leave a cleaner record if you later sell or refinance. Either way, the deed must identify the trust by its full legal name, the date it was created, and the trustee’s name.
Notarize and Record
Sign the deed in front of a notary, then record it with the county recorder or register of deeds where the property sits. Recording fees generally run from a few dollars up to around $70 for the first page, with a small charge per additional page. Some jurisdictions add transfer taxes or documentary stamps, though many exempt transfers into a revocable trust because no sale is occurring. Confirm the fee schedule and any exemption paperwork with your county recorder before you file.
What About the Mortgage?
If the property is mortgaged, federal law protects you from the loan being called due when you move the home into a trust. The Garn-St. Germain Depository Institutions Act bars a lender from enforcing a due-on-sale clause on a residential loan when the borrower transfers the property into a trust and remains a beneficiary.2GovInfo. 12 USC 1701j-3 – Preemption of Due-on-Sale Prohibitions The implementing regulation adds that the borrower must not refuse to give the lender reasonable notice of any later change in beneficial interest or occupancy.3GovInfo. 12 CFR 591.5 – Limitation on Exercise of Due-on-Sale Clauses Notify the lender about the transfer as a courtesy, but the lender cannot demand full repayment because of it.
Property Taxes
Transferring real estate into a revocable trust where you remain the beneficiary typically does not trigger a property tax reassessment, because the true beneficial owner hasn’t changed. Procedures vary, so check with your local assessor’s office about whether any filing or exemption form is expected alongside the deed.
Update Your Insurance
Two insurance loose ends catch people out. First, an existing title insurance policy may or may not follow the property into the trust. Read the policy’s continuation of coverage language, and if trust transfers aren’t clearly covered, ask the title company about an endorsement naming the trustee.
Second, call your homeowners insurance carrier as soon as the deed is recorded. The property now belongs to the trust, and if you file a claim without updating the policy, the insurer can dispute coverage because the named insured no longer matches the owner. Most carriers add the trust at no cost or for a small endorsement fee. Ask for the trust to be listed as an additional insured, not merely an additional interest; only insured status extends actual coverage.
Retitling Bank and Brokerage Accounts
Financial accounts get retitled one institution at a time. Call the bank or brokerage, ask for their trust account forms, and send in the trust document or a certificate of trust. The account name changes to something like “Jane Smith, Trustee of the Smith Family Trust dated March 15, 2024.” Account numbers sometimes change, sometimes don’t.
A certificate of trust is a shorter document that confirms the trust exists, names the trustee, and lists the trustee’s powers without disclosing beneficiaries or distribution terms. Most financial institutions accept it in place of the full trust document, which protects your privacy. Your attorney can draft one from the trust if you don’t already have it.
Moving appreciated stock or mutual funds into a revocable trust does not trigger capital gains tax. Nothing is being sold; the registration is simply changing. The cost basis carries over, and because you remain the grantor with the power to revoke, the IRS still treats the assets as yours for income tax purposes.
Retirement Accounts and Life Insurance: Name the Trust as Beneficiary
For IRAs, 401(k)s, 403(b)s, and similar accounts, don’t retitle. Fill out the account’s beneficiary designation form and name the trust as beneficiary. When you die, the assets flow into the trust according to whatever your trust document says.
Life insurance follows the same pattern. You keep the policy in your name and designate the trust as beneficiary, either primary or contingent behind a spouse.
One warning if you’re naming a trust as IRA beneficiary: the SECURE Act generally requires non-spouse beneficiaries to empty an inherited IRA within 10 years of the owner’s death, and that deadline applies when the beneficiary is a trust. How the trust handles those forced distributions, whether it passes them through to individuals or accumulates them inside the trust, affects taxes significantly. That’s a conversation to have with the attorney drafting or reviewing the trust before you file the beneficiary form.
Personal Property
Items Without a Title
For furniture, jewelry, art, and collectibles, ownership transfers through an assignment document. It’s a written statement assigning all your right and interest in the listed items to the trustee. Describe each item specifically enough that someone reading the assignment later can tell what was transferred. “All my jewelry” is technically valid but creates arguments during administration. Better to write something like “14k gold bracelet with emerald setting, appraised at $3,200 on June 10, 2024.”
Items With a Title
Vehicles, boats, and aircraft carry state-issued titles that have to be changed. For a car, take the current title to the motor vehicle agency with a transfer application and pay the title fee. The new title lists the trust as owner. Some states charge sales tax on vehicle title changes, though many exempt transfers to a trust where no money changes hands. Call first to confirm what your state wants.
Business Interests
Transferring an ownership interest in a business is a tighter process because other people’s rights are usually involved. For corporate stock, sign the shares over with a stock assignment and have the corporate secretary update the shareholder records. For an LLC, execute an assignment of membership interest and update the operating agreement to reflect the trust as the new owner.
Before doing any of it, read the governing documents. Operating agreements, shareholder agreements, and partnership agreements often include transfer restrictions, rights of first refusal, or outright bars on assigning interests without consent. Ignoring them can void the transfer or trigger buyout provisions you didn’t want.
Also think about tax structure. An S corporation limits who can be a shareholder. A revocable trust qualifies during the grantor’s lifetime, but after the grantor dies, the trust has only two years to distribute the shares or make a qualifying election before the S election is at risk.
Cryptocurrency and Digital Assets
Digital assets are easy to forget and easy to lose. Cryptocurrency in particular depends on how you hold it.
On an exchange like Coinbase or Fidelity, check whether the platform supports trust accounts. Some let you open a new account in the trust’s name or convert an existing individual account. Make sure the trust name on the account matches the trust document exactly and that the trustee is listed as an authorized person.
For self-custodied crypto in a hardware or software wallet, create a new wallet designated for the trust, move the coins into it, and record the wallet address on the trust’s asset schedule. The hardware wallet can live in a safe deposit box or another secure location with documented access rights for the trustee. The trust document or a separate letter of instruction should spell out what digital assets exist, where they’re held, and how a successor trustee reaches the private keys and seed phrases. If that information dies with you, the crypto is gone.
Patents, Copyrights, and Trademarks
Intellectual property transfers through a written assignment of rights that describes the property, lists any registration numbers, and names the trust as the new owner. For patents and trademarks registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, record the assignment with the USPTO so the transfer appears in public records. For copyrights, record the assignment with the U.S. Copyright Office. If the property generates royalties or licensing income, update those agreements to direct payments to the trust or trustee.
Do You Need a Separate Tax ID?
While you’re alive and serving as trustee of your own revocable trust, no. The IRS treats a revocable grantor trust as an extension of you, so income earned by trust assets goes on your personal return under your Social Security number, and financial institutions can use your SSN for 1099 reporting.4Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form SS-4 (Rev. December 2025) No separate trust return is filed during this period.
When the grantor dies, the trust typically becomes irrevocable and needs its own Employer Identification Number, obtained through Form SS-4 on the IRS website. Once the trust has an EIN and $600 or more in gross income, the trustee files Form 1041 for that tax year. A return is also required if the trust has any taxable income regardless of amount, or if any beneficiary is a nonresident alien.5Internal Revenue Service. Instructions for Form 1041 and Schedules A, B, G, J, and K-1 (2025)
The Pour-Over Will as a Safety Net
Even with careful funding, something usually gets left out. You open a new account and forget to title it in the trust. An inheritance lands in your individual name. A pour-over will catches these gaps by directing your executor to transfer anything still in your individual name at death into the trust.
The catch: assets passing through a pour-over will still go through probate. The will is filed with the court, the executor inventories the assets, and the process takes time and money like any other probate. The stray assets reach the trust eventually, but they don’t escape the delays and expense the trust was meant to avoid. Treat the pour-over will as a backup, not a substitute for properly funding the trust.
Because of that, review your trust funding once a year. When you buy property, open a new account, or start a business, put “retitle into the trust” on the checklist alongside the other paperwork. A few minutes now can save your family months of probate later.1Legal Information Institute. Funding a Trust