Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

Re: Revocable living trust

Thanks very much for your question. To answer your question most directly, yes, you will need to specifically revoke your prior trust. Even though your co-settlor and your beneficiary have both deceased, to avoid involvement with their estates, you should specifically revoke your prior trust, and make a new one.

As you seem to suggest, this is normally done as part of the language of drafting a new trust. Your new trust, if drafted by a competent attorney, should have a declaration recognizing the prior trust, and specifically revoking it and "all other prior trusts", to protect you from complications later.

I hope this helps -- but if you need any further information, please feel free to email me, or call my office, toll free, at 1-877-568-2977. Best of luck to you.

Re: Revocable living trust

The trust should be reviewed to see if any part of it is irrevocable first. Even if part of it is, there may be ways to change things, such as with a power of appointment, if the trust allows.

For the revocable portion, an amendment may be all you need, or a "restatement" at most, which is basically a new trust, but technically an amendment--the advantage to a restatement is that the trust name stays the same, so you will not have to retitle all your assets when you make the restatement changes.