“My mom went into a nursing home and lost everything. I want to put my house in an irrevocable trust. Can you help? Is that advisable?”
Should you put your house into an Irrevocable Trust?
Many clients come to our office saying that they want to create an irrevocable trust now and they want to put their house in this irrevocable trust now and perhaps other accounts. When you create an irrevocable trust and then you put something into it, you retitle your house into that trust or a bank account, the idea is that you’re giving it away, it’s no longer yours. It’s going to be in and owned by this trust and you should not be the trustee of this trust and you cannot be the beneficiary of the assets. So those assets could never be used for your benefit again. There are circumstances where an irrevocable trust is a good idea but you have to go into it with your eyes wide open as to what the ramifications are for this. Are you sure that you don’t need that asset to live on? Are you sure that you’re not going to want to sell that house and move into an assisted living facility or a continuing care retirement community? How do you know how long you’re going to live and that you might want to have a reverse mortgage on your house? All you have left is the value of your home, why not borrow from the value of your home in order to keep you at home if that’s what you want to do? So if you’re giving an asset away, you are going to limit your options later. And it still may be a good idea, in your circumstance, but you have to look at your particular circumstance. And it’s simply not for everybody.