Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California
My mom and dad had a Revocable Living Trust. My dad has passed away and my mom needs to Amend the trust do you have a form for that?
4 Answers from Attorneys
You might try Office Depot or another large stationary store, or the local law library. there are many web sites that have forms as well. I don't.
Your Mom should meet with a lawyer to review the trust. Some trusts limit amendments that the surviving spouse can make. For example, in some trusts 1/2 of the trust becomes irrevocable on the death of the first spouse and so your Mom may only be able to amend 1/2 of the trust. Also, if you have an attorney prepare the amendment you can avoid mistakes, such as failing to properly revoke a portion of the trust affected by the amendment so that you are left with conflicting trust language.
You need to review the trust document to see what powers you mother retains as the surviving grantor of the trust. In many trusts, the trust becomes irrevocable upon the death of the first grantor to die. If this is the case, your mother may not be able to amend the trust. In other cases, where the trust assets are divided upon the first to die, your mother may only have the ability to amend what happens to her half. If the trust was set up to take advantage of tax laws, tinkering with the trust without professional advice may cause adverse tax effects. You are entering into dangerous territory in changing a trust document without professional guidance. Just as an example, if the original trust has a no-contest clause and the amendment does not, the no contest clause may be lost.
I do not know of any standard, commercially available, trust amendment form. Trusts are most often created without use of a standardized form. Uninformed changes done without knowledge of the law can cause many headaches later on.
Seek professional guidance to make changes to the trust. You will sleep better at night.
Modifying a trust without the assistance of an attorney is certain to make a mess of things later on. There is no "form" you can just fill in and sign. It's no that simple.