Attorney Thomas B. Burton discusses how you can Restate a Trust formed in one state in another state, or restate an old Trust to gain the benefits of the new Wisconsin Trust Code.
Transcript of Video: How To Restate Your Trust From One State in Another State
Hey welcome back. This is attorney Thomas Burton. And today I wanted to do a quick video to cover a topic that was just at the top of my mind. And I thought it'd be useful for people to know about and that's about what you can do with an old trust that you currently have in place that you either formed in another state or formed here in Wisconsin, but I had a question come up about this recently.
As many of you know the good reason to form a trust is to avoid probate in the state you're in meaning the court administered process that you have to go through with a will of administering your assets, after you pass away so with the trust. The goal is to avoid probate. And all those assets and one area attorneys like me like to use a trust is to avoid probate in multiple states, you can have one revocable living trust and it can own property in Wisconsin property in Minnesota , property in Florida, and avoid probate, and all that real estate instead of having to, if you don't have a trust you would need probate in Minnesota, a probate in Florida and a probate in Wisconsin. So if you have property in multiple states you really want to look at a trust to avoid it. But what happens when let's say you've been living in one state for a while, and then you move to another state. So this happens for many people who are snowbirds, as they're called and they live in Florida or Texas, they often move there and form a trust for their property in that state and in Florida one reason you do this is that's one of the factors that they look at when determining residency for state income tax purposes. And if people live in Florida, a lot of times they want to be a resident and not pay because they have no income tax in Florida, whereas we do in Wisconsin, but sometimes you don't want to stay there forever, or you moved back to Wisconsin etc So what do you do in that situation if you have a trust? So the great news is you can set up a trust in any state, but the state you plan to be in, when you pass away, it's often the best state to have the trust law under when you plan to pass away, so for folks who move back to Wisconsin. Sometimes they tell me I put together a trust a few years ago or maybe many years ago what do I do now? Well sometimes if you need lots of updates we'll redo the entire trust but another option is to restate your trust. And we can restate it under the law of the state you choose, and for most people that's going to be the state they're currently living in and domiciled in and the state, they want, where most of their assets are so if you have all of your assets in Wisconsin, it makes sense to have a Wisconsin trust to administer your Wisconsin real estate because all of the authorities in Wisconsin are going to be most familiar with Wisconsin law like the register of deeds, the court system, the banks, the financial institutions. Now one other thing to look at, and this is key because your property is important but when you're gone you're gone what's important is while you're alive caring for your own health. I always recommend you make sure you have your health care power of attorney updated to match the state in which you're currently residing, and the reason that's important is because your health care providers.
They fall under the laws of where you live, so if you live in Wisconsin the hospital here in Eau Claire is going to follow Wisconsin law, and those health care documents are they do vary state to state. So you want to make sure they're consistent with the state you're living in. But in terms of your trust the great thing about a revocable living trust is it's flexible and you can work with a lawyer like me or another estate planning attorney. When you get to the state where you move you can restate the trust we call it and you declare I am now a resident of this state and I wish to restate the trust under the laws of this state, etc. etc. and gain the safety and the protection of for instance here the Wisconsin trust code. Now one other reason you might want to do this is if you have an older trust. And there's provisions of the new Wisconsin trust code that you want fall under. There's many good provisions in the new Wisconsin Trust code adopted in 2014, that you might wish to take advantage of such as decanting and other options, flexibility, so you might wish to update an old trust. But I caution clients to work with a good estate planning attorney, because there are some reasons such as with Medicaid planning, where you want to keep that old trust in place for instance anyone who has a trust that predates August 1, 2014. I've done other videos on this but there's special provisions under current law for Medicaid planning purposes where we want to keep that trust. So in that case I would look at restating the old trust so we keep the original date you formed that, let's say it was 1995, but we're restating under the Wisconsin trust code on today's date or whatever date we do it. So again, just keep in mind the trust is very useful to avoid probate in multiple states and if you do move your residence from state to state, I suggest, and you plan to stay there, restating your trust, under the law of the state which are currently domiciled to make sure everything goes smoothly with the administration of your property, if something should happen to you in the event you ever pass away.
So that's a summary today of how you can restate a trust to keep the date you originally signed it, but update it, or, like I said declared under the law of a new state. And it's a very useful option for many people, and a great way another great way that a revocable living trust is really a flexible document that can change with you throughout your life.
So thanks for watching, and we'll see you next time.
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Transcript and captions provided for ease of access for the hearing impaired.
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