Should I Put My House in Trust?

The benefit of transferring your house into the Living Trust during your lifetime is to avoid probate after your death.  Especially if your home is one of your largest assets, you would want to transfer your home into your Living Trust when you execute your other trust documents.  Otherwise, you run the risk of your family needing to go through probate proceedings, which is likely what you were trying to avoid by setting up a Living Trust in the first place.

If you own your house with rights of survivorship with your spouse, the house will automatically pass to your spouse at your death, so long as he/she survives you.   If you put it in Trust, you won’t need to update the deed unless you or your trustees want to transfer ownership of the house to another individual after your death.  You still maintain the same control that you currently have over the house so long as you are the Trustee. 

In most cases, we do not recommend adding names to a deed unless you are completely sure that this is the best action for you.  It is often a much better idea to leave your home to a relative in your Will, execute a transfer-on-death deed, or put your home into a Living Trust.