Yes, trusts can avoid probate in Washington. 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 Washington 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 overall cost of estate planning in Washington can run to around $4,250.
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 Washington, 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, business interests, stocks, and bonds.
Adding a house to a trust in Washington can be a little more complex — the state has specific rules and regulations about it.
In Washington, any individual who is at least 18 years old and mentally competent can serve as a trustee. Moreover, Washington 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 taking care of property, and they can't have been convicted of serious crimes, including felonies or crimes that involve dishonesty or a breach of trust.
In Washington, to modify your living trust, you must draft an amendment that clearly specifies the changes you wish to make to the original trust document. This could include adding or removing beneficiaries, altering trustees, or revising distribution instructions. Your amendment should include the date, your name, the name of the trust, and the date the trust was initially created. The amendment, similar to the original trust document, must be signed in the presence of a notary public. If you want to make significant changes to your living trust, it may be more practical to create a restatement of the trust. A restatement allows you to rewrite the entire trust while preserving the original date and title of the trust, which can be beneficial for avoiding the need to retitle assets. In the restatement, you would include all the changes you want to make, and these new terms will entirely replace the old ones.
