Yes, trusts can avoid probate in Maryland. By creating a trust and transferring assets into it, you can bypass the probate process, which can be time-consuming and expensive. Assets held in a trust do not become part of your personal estate and are not subject to probate upon your death.
The cost of creating a trust in Maryland varies depending on the complexity of your estate and the attorney's fees. The average cost for a basic Revocable Living Trust ranges from $1,000 to $3,000, while more complex trusts may cost more. Online legal services may offer lower-cost alternatives to traditional legal services for creating trusts.
The most common type of trust is a Revocable Living Trust, which allows you to maintain control over your assets during your lifetime and can be amended or revoked. Other types of trusts, such as Charitable Trusts or Special Needs Trusts, may be appropriate depending on your specific estate planning goals.
To fund a trust in Maryland, you must transfer ownership of your assets to the trust. This includes re-titling real estate, changing account holders for bank accounts, and transferring ownership of personal property, vehicles, stocks, and bonds.
In Maryland, any individual who is at least 18 years old and mentally competent can serve as a trustee. Additionally, Maryland law allows for corporations, such as banks or trust companies, to serve as a trustee if they are authorized to exercise trust powers in the state. Trustees must be capable of managing and looking after property, and they cannot have been convicted of serious crimes, including felonies or crimes that involve dishonest or immoral behavior.
In Maryland, to change your living trust, you should draft an amendment to the original trust document. The amendment should clearly state the changes you want to make, such as adding or removing beneficiaries, changing trustees, or modifying distribution instructions. Be sure to include the date, your name, the name of the trust, and the date the trust was created. Like the original trust document, your amendment should be signed in the presence of a notary public. If you want to make extensive changes to your living trust, it might be easier to create a restatement of the trust. A restatement allows you to rewrite the entire trust, while maintaining the original date and title of the trust, which can be beneficial for avoiding retitling assets. In the restatement, you would include all the changes you want to make, and the new provisions will replace the old ones entirely.
