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Your Trust is a Bus: Understanding Trust Creation and Funding

Estate planning often feels like an overwhelming, complicated subject, filled with legal terms that sound more like puzzles than plain language. But what if we used something simple to explain one of the most important tools in estate planning: A trust?

Let’s imagine your trust as a bus. That’s right, a bus. It might not look like much at first, but once you understand the analogy, you’ll see exactly why a trust can be such a powerful vehicle for protecting and passing along your assets.

Step One: The Grantor Buys the Bus

A trust begins with the person who creates it. In legal terms, that person is called the grantor (sometimes also called the settlor or trustor). Think of the grantor as the bus owner. They decide the purpose of the bus, who’s allowed to ride, and where the bus is supposed to go.

When you create a trust, you’re essentially buying and customizing your own bus. It’s yours, and you decide how it operates.

Step Two: The Driver Gets Behind the Wheel

Now that we have a bus, someone needs to drive it. That’s where the trustee comes in. The trustee is the person who manages the trust. They handle the day-to-day responsibilities of making sure the trust is used properly—just like a bus driver is responsible for steering the bus safely down the road.

In most cases, when you first set up a trust, you, the grantor, also make yourself the trustee. That means you own the bus, and you’re also driving it. You’re fully in control of where it goes while you’re alive and well.

Step Three: Loading the Bus (Funding the Trust)

Here’s where many people stumble: a trust only works if it’s funded.

Funding a trust means transferring your property into the trust. Imagine putting your house, your bank accounts, your investments, and even personal property like family heirlooms onto the bus. Until those items are on board, they’re still sitting at the bus stop, not actually riding along.

Without funding, your bus may look shiny and official, but it’s empty. If the bus is empty when the grantor passes away, there’s nothing for the new driver to deliver.

Funding is typically accomplished by:

• Titling real estate into the trust’s name.
• Changing ownership of bank accounts or adding the trust as the account holder.
• Moving investment accounts into the trust.
• Updating beneficiary designations on life insurance or retirement accounts to direct them to the trust.

Think of each of these steps as loading your belongings onto the bus, making sure they’re all secured and ready for the ride.

Step Four: A Backup Driver is Named

No bus can run forever with the same driver. Eventually, the grantor (bus owner and current driver) won’t be able to steer anymore, whether because of incapacity or death. That’s why it’s vital to name a successor trustee.

The successor trustee is like the person you’ve handpicked to slide into the driver’s seat when you can’t drive anymore. This new driver doesn’t get to make up their own route. They must follow the plan you already mapped out. But they do have the responsibility to steer the bus and make sure everything and everyone gets where they’re supposed to go.

Step Five: The Bus Route is the Estate Plan

A bus isn’t much good if it doesn’t have a route. The route tells the driver where to go and where each asset loaded onto the bus should be delivered.

This route is your estate plan. It lays out who the beneficiaries are (your loved ones, charities, or others you’ve chosen) and what share of the assets each should receive. The successor trustee doesn’t get to decide where the bus goes; they’re bound to follow the path you’ve already drawn.

When the grantor dies, the successor trustee drives the bus along the estate plan’s route, delivering assets to the beneficiaries as you’ve instructed.

Why Loading and Up-keeping the Bus Matters

Imagine this: you go through all the work of buying the bus, naming yourself as driver, picking a backup driver, and planning a thoughtful route. But when the day comes to set out on the final ride, the bus is empty. The driver has nothing to deliver.

That’s what happens when people create trusts but don’t fund them. Property left outside the trust may have to go through probate, a costly and time-consuming court process. The very bus you bought to avoid the hassle ends up useless.

Or you maybe have bought new assets, but forget to put them on the bus and leave them on the side of the road. You need to perform maintenance on your bus and double-check on the bus inventory regularly to avoid problems later.

By making sure your assets are properly loaded onto the bus and continuing to load future assets on the bus, you guarantee that the ride will go smoothly, and that your successor trustee can do their job without confusion, delay, or unnecessary expense.

How Walker Law Firm of Cache Valley Can Help

Creating and funding a trust isn’t as simple as buying a bus ticket—it’s more like designing and building your own bus. Each property you own needs careful handling to ensure it’s properly transferred to the trust. Mistakes in the process can leave assets stranded, defeating the purpose of the plan.

At Walker Law Firm of Cache Valley, attorney Matthew A. Walker works with individuals and families across Utah to set up and fund trusts properly. Whether you’re just starting your estate plan or you need help funding an existing trust, we can guide you every step of the way. Think of us as your trusted mechanics, making sure your bus is built well, fueled up, and ready to make deliveries to your loved ones.

If you’re ready to make sure your bus isn’t sitting empty at the station, call Walker Law Firm of Cache Valley today. We’ll help ensure your trust is properly funded and your estate plan is ready for the road ahead.