Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Georgia

In Ga, my husband and I have a revocable trust. He now has alzheimers, he understands and agrees that some of our rental houses need to be swapped in the trust's however his penmanship is not good. Is it alright for me to swap properties from my trust to his or vice versa. Do I use my Power Of Attorney to do this?

Thanks


Asked on 1/31/16, 7:41 pm

2 Answers from Attorneys

Glen Ashman Ashman Law Office also dba Glen Ashman Attorney

You are way outside of things you can do pro se. No lawyer could begin to answer this without reading the trust and POA language, and getting other information. Sit down with an attorney to determine not only how and if to do this, but to find out any unexpected effects from this.

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Answered on 1/31/16, 8:06 pm

Since you had a revocable living trust and a power of attorney, I presume you had an attorney draft for you. In such case, your question should be directed to the attorney who drafted the documents. If it was done by an attorney and properly, you and your husband would have been appointed co-trustees. A financial power of attorney would also have been done at the same time. All of your assets should have been conveyed to the trust and this would have required that if you and your husband owned any real property to have quit claim deeds drawn up to handle that.

When one of the trustees become incapacitated, he or she simply resigns as trustee leaving the other person to solely serve as trustee. The trustee (in this case you) would then manage trust property as if nothing ever happened.

If any real property was NOT conveyed to the trust (this begs the question of why as it defeats the purpose of having a trust in the first place) then the agent under the financial power of attorney would be authorized to act for your husband. If this is you, then yes, you use the power of attorney to handle any property which is not in the trust. The financial power should be recorded though at the register of deeds' office before you go to use it.

Your post is unclear - do you have one revocable trust for husband and wife or do you each have separate revocable living trusts? My advice would be based on the former. If you have 2 separate revocable living trusts, then your husband needs to resign as the trustee of his trust and the successor trustee would step in. The successor trustee would then have the authority to convey any property owned by the trust. As before, if any property was not put in a trust, then the agent under the financial power of attorney would use that (after recording) so as to be able to convey the property into the trust.

I agree with Attorney Ashman that an attorney needs to review the documents. My advice assumes that the trust documents were all properly drafted. If they weren't, then you definitely need to have reviewed by a lawyer.

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Answered on 2/01/16, 3:40 am


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