Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Virginia

Re: Trust and Real Property

That's an interesting question because no one is ever required to file a deed at all. The purpose of filing a deed in the deed records is to protect the purchaser. The idea is to prevent a seller from selling the same property to two different people. By recording the deed to the first purchaser, other people are placed on notice that the previous owner no longer own ts the property and cannot sell it a second time.

So, no, you do not have to file the deed. I'm not sure you even have to prepare a deed, although not doing so would leave a lot of loose ends legally for someone else to sort out later.

However, I think you would need to do more than just make a record notation. You should have formal paperwork actually transferring any property from one "owner" (e.g, one trust) to new "owner" (the irrevocable trust). Complicated? Not necessarily. By "formal" I do not mean tedious or overwhelming. Just clear and serious, not a casual notation in the trust file.

This is what is required to make the irrevocable trust the actual owner for all purposes of the property.

However, you might also consider what you expect to happen to this property many, many years far in the future when your heirs take possession of the property. Will they want to sell it? To sell it they will need a good chain of title. This could probably be worked out then without too much difficulty, but it is a factor to consider. For example, if the trust will distribute the property to them and then dissolve, your executor would then at that time be preparing new deeds to effect this transfer ANYWAY, so it might be a good time to prepare any paper work then, not now. On the other hand, if the trust is planned to contiue for some time after you, then the trust might be selling the property for cash value and need to make some deed filings to prepare for that. On the other hand, perhaps it is investment property that the trust will operate for some period of time, in which case nothing needs to be done.