A signed trust does not mean a working trust
Diane is a retired physician in Dr. Phillips. Her late husband had been organized about everything, so when he passed away, she assumed the binder he left behind had taken care of the hard parts. Beautiful trust agreement. Pour-over will. Powers of attorney. A nice navy folder with the firm's seal on the front.
Six months later her son sat across from us holding that folder, asking why the bank would not just hand over the accounts. The trust said exactly what it was supposed to say. The problem was that the house, the brokerage account, the CDs, and the car were all still titled in his father's individual name. The trust owned almost nothing.
That, in one sentence, is the most expensive mistake we see in Florida estate planning. The trust gets signed and the trust never gets funded.
What "funding" actually means
A revocable living trust is a container. It only protects what you put inside it. If your house is still deeded to "John Smith, a married man," and your trust is the "John Smith Revocable Trust dated 2018," those are two different legal owners as far as the county clerk and the bank are concerned. The trust does not magically vacuum up the rest of your estate when you die.
Funding means changing how things are titled. The deed gets re-recorded into the trust. The brokerage account gets retitled. Bank accounts get retitled or made payable on death. Beneficiary designations on retirement accounts and life insurance get reviewed so they coordinate with the plan instead of fighting it.
It is not glamorous work. It is mostly paperwork, follow-up calls, and patience with banks. Which is exactly why so many people skip it.
Why this happens to careful, organized people
Most clients we meet are not careless. They are busy. They sign the documents, leave with the binder, and intend to handle the funding "next month." Then they retire, then they travel, then a grandchild is born, and the binder migrates from the kitchen counter to the office to a closet shelf.
Some clients used an out-of-state attorney, a national chain, or an online form. The documents looked fine. The funding instructions, if they existed at all, were a single page that said "transfer your assets to the trust." That is a little like handing someone a recipe that ends with "and then prepare the dish."
Other clients were told the firm would handle the deed and never followed up to confirm it actually got recorded. We have pulled deeds for new clients only to discover the deed was prepared, signed, and then quietly never filed with Orange County.
Why an unfunded trust is worse than no trust at all
When a trust sits empty, two unhappy things happen at the same time.
First, the assets that should have been inside the trust now have to go through Florida probate. That means a petition in circuit court, a personal representative, a notice to creditors, the three-month creditor claim period under F.S. 733.701, and the rest of the process you were trying to avoid. The pour-over will catches what you missed, but the price of that catch is full formal probate or summary administration.
Second, you also paid for the trust. So your family gets the trust bill, the probate bill, and the delay you were promised would never happen. For Orlando families, the practical effect is roughly six to twelve months in probate, several thousand dollars in fees, and a calendar full of court deadlines that fall on whichever adult child has the most flexible job.
A quick Florida-specific wrinkle: homestead
Florida homestead is its own complicated animal. We see two failures over and over.
One, the deed never gets transferred into the trust at all, so the home goes through probate. Two, the deed gets transferred but the trust language does not properly preserve homestead protections, or the homeowner is married and the spouse did not join in the deed, which can create a very bad surprise later. A Lady Bird deed (enhanced life estate deed) is sometimes a cleaner alternative for the home, but only when it actually fits the family.
The point is that "title the house into the trust" is not always a one-sentence task in Florida, and a generic online form will not warn you about it.
How to tell if your trust is empty
You can do a rough self-check tonight. Pull the most recent statement for each account you own. Look at the name on the statement. If the name on the statement is your individual name, that asset is not in the trust. If the name reads something like "John Smith, Trustee of the John Smith Revocable Trust dated 2018," that asset is in the trust.
For real estate, pull the deed from the Orange County Comptroller or your county's online records. If your trust is named on the deed, you are in good shape. If not, you have homework.
For retirement accounts and life insurance, the question is different. These usually pass by beneficiary designation rather than through the trust. Pull the beneficiary forms and confirm they actually exist, name living people or a properly drafted trust, and reflect the family you have today and not the family you had in 2009.
Practical next steps
If you suspect your trust is empty, do not panic and do not start moving things on your own based on a YouTube video. The order of operations matters in Florida, and a sloppy deed transfer can create new problems.
Bring the binder, the most recent statements for each account, and the most recent deed for each piece of real estate to a Florida estate planning attorney. We do this kind of "trust funding audit" all the time, and it usually goes faster than clients expect because most of the work is mechanical once we know what is in the trust and what is not.
If you have a plan from another state, or a plan that is more than five years old, this is a good moment for a refresh anyway. Florida law has changed, the federal estate tax exemption has changed, and your family has almost certainly changed.
Frequently asked questions
Do I still need a will if I have a fully funded trust? Yes. A pour-over will is the safety net. It catches anything you forgot to title into the trust, like a checking account opened ten years after the trust was signed. A trust without a pour-over will is a plan with a hole in it.
Can I fund the trust myself using forms from the bank? Sometimes, for simple accounts. Real estate is where do-it-yourself funding goes wrong most often, especially with Florida homestead, married couples, and properties owned with siblings. A Florida attorney should at least review what you are about to record before you record it.
What about my IRA and 401(k)? Usually no. Retirement accounts are governed by beneficiary designations and federal tax rules, and naming a trust as beneficiary the wrong way can accelerate income tax for your heirs.
How long does a trust funding audit take? For most families, an initial review takes about a week of back-and-forth once we have the documents and statements in hand. Recording a corrected deed and retitling accounts can take another few weeks depending on how cooperative the institutions are. It is much faster, and much cheaper, than probating the same assets later.
