If You Went to the Expense of Creating a Trust Make Sure Your Savings Bonds Are “Reissued” In the Name of Your Trust

 A living trust is used to transfer assets when you die without having those assets go through the process of a legal probate.  A living trust can distribute the proceeds of your estate quicker than through the will and probate process.  For a living trust to be effective, your assets must be transferred to the trust with you as the trustee.
Since part of my law practice entails Trust Administration, I am seeing more and more paper Savings Bonds that are not “funded” or “reissued” before death into the name of a Trust.  Even though the popularity of the U.S. Savings Bonds may have gone by the wayside, the average American household has over $1,800 in U.S. Savings Bonds.
Now re-issuance of savings bonds to a Trust must be handled “on line” through Treasury Direct located at https://www.treasurydirect.gov.  If you go to this website, you will find forms you can download and complete.  They even have a section dedicated to telling you what forms and documents are needed to re-issue the savings bond to a Trust.  You can then take the completed, but not signed form to a bank so your signature can be certified by a certifying officer (this includes authorized employees of insured depository institutions and corporate central credit unions).  This is not the same as having your signature acknowledge d by a notary public.
Ms. MacDonald’s practice is limited to Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Administration.  Ms. MacDonald maintains her practice in the Santa Clarita Valley at 25115 Avenue Stanford, Suite A-209, Valencia, California.  She can be reached at 661-294-6464.