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DISTINCTIONS BETWEEN TRUST AMENDMENTS AND RESTATEMENTS

A Trust Amendment is a legal document that changes specific provisions of a Revocable Living Trust but leaves all of the other provisions unchanged, while an Amendment and Restatement of Trust completely replaces and supersedes all of the provisions of the original Revocable Living Trust.

Understanding the Basics of Revocable Living Trusts

Before discussing when Trust Amendments or full Amendments and Restatements are required, you’ll need to understand what a Revocable Living Trust is – a legal contract between the Trust maker and Trustee that can be changed at any time and requires the Trustee to oversee the management of property transferred into the trust by the Trust maker for the benefit of the Beneficiary of the trust.

The key to a Revocable Living Trust is the fact that it’s revocable – meaning that at any time while the Trust maker is alive and competent the Trust maker can change, modify, update, or completely revoke the provisions of the trust agreement. Since this is the case, the name of the legal document that’s required to change, modify, or update the trust agreement is called a Trust Amendment and the legal document that’s required to revoke the trust agreement is called a Trust Revocation.

Contrast a Trust Amendment with a Trust Amendment and Restatement, which is a type of trust amendment that completely supersedes the terms of the original trust agreement. The name and date of your trust will stay the same (for more on this, see below), but each and every provision of the original agreement will be replaced by the terms of the restatement.

When Are Trust Amendments vs. Restatements Required?

While there aren’t really any written rules as to when an Amendment instead of a full Amendment and Restatement is required, the general rule is that if the changes that the Trust maker wants to make are minimal – adding or deleting specific bequests, changing who will serve as Successor Trustee, updating a beneficiary’s or Successor Trustee’s legal name due to marriage or divorce – then a simple Trust Amendment will cover these types of changes.

On the other hand, if the changes that the Trust maker wants to make are significant – adding a new spouse as a beneficiary, completely cutting out a beneficiary, changing from distributions to family members to distributions to charity or vice versa – then a complete Amendment and Restatement should be considered.

What if you’ve made a series of three or four simple Trust Amendments over the past 10-15 years and you want to make another change? Then consider consolidating all of your changes into a complete Amendment and Restatement – this will prove to be helpful to your Successor Trustee who will have a single document to follow instead of piecing together the provisions of four or five separate documents.

The Legalities of Trust Amendments

If you’re considering making a change to your Revocable Living Trust, don’t simply mark up your trust agreement and stick it back in the drawer. Why? Because a Trust Amendment must be signed with the same formalities as the original trust agreement, so your handwritten changes will, depending on applicable state law, either void the trust agreement or be ignored. Instead, ask your estate planning attorney to prepare the Trust Amendment for you so that it will be legally valid and binding on all of your beneficiaries.

Will the Name of Your Trust Change if You Amend or Restate It?

The answer is No – the nice thing about doing a Trust Amendment or an Amendment and Restatement is that the original name and date of your Revocable Living Trust will remain the same. That way, all of the hard work you put into funding your Revocable Living Trust under the original trust name and date won’t need to be undone.

 

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