Should your home be titled and owned by your revocable living trust

Jim: I'm 76, my wife is 60 and we put our home in a trust with lease. We have 14-year old daughters, identical twins. I'm told by some people that should be in our personal names rather than in the trust. If the house is paid for, what's the right thing to do?

Tom Olsen: Okay Jim, I am going to [unintelligible 00:00:27] you down because because you have got a lot of background noise but Jim, you are correct. When people have a trust and when people talk about trust, we are all talking about the same thing, a revocable living trust. Generally, you do not put your home into the name of the trust and the reason for that is, we're concerned that it may make it subject to creditor claim.

Under Florida constitution, the home you live in is free from creditor claims, doctors, hospitals, credit cards. But if your home is not owned in your individual name as owned in the name of your trust, we would be concerned that may make your home subject to creditor claims.

Jim, the way we're typically doing it here at the Olsen Law Group is that we use a Lady Bird deed. It's a deed that we prepare. Jim, it states that as long as you or your wife are alive, the home is in your individual names. You can do as you please, anything you want to. The Lady Bird deed states that when you have both passed away, your home automatically goes to your trust. No headaches, no hassles, no probate.

Jim, I'm slightly concerned that your home is owned by your trust. It's not our way we do business at the Olsen Law Group. You're going to have to make a judgement call about whether you want to undo what's been done. Jim if you do want to undo it, there's a much better way to do it and that is again through a Lady Bird deed. It states that as long as you or your wife are alive, it's in your individual names. You get this absolute protection from creditor claims given to us by the Florida constitution and you get the ability to avoid probate.

Jim, that would be my recommendation to you.

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