Question:
I would like a straight answer to this question. Can I add a new home to my trust by submitting a witness signature, or notary, or my witnesses signatures? Is this new home automatically in the trust since the trust includes the phrase “any new properties acquired since making out the trust”?
Response:
No, the trust language doesn’t do the trick. The only sure way to make certain title to the property is held by the trust is to execute and record a new deed transferring title to the trust. Typically, deeds require notarization, but no witnesses, just signing by the owner or owners.
Every state has a similar system for recording property ownership through a registry of deeds. The concept is that anyone can determine who owns property by researching this question at the registry. For this to work, all property transfers must be recorded at the registry. If, instead, the words in a trust not recorded at the registry were to cause the change in ownership to the trust, no one would know. The prior owner could go ahead and sell the property again to someone else.
So you will need to execute and record a new deed. It should read something like this: “I, John Doe, convey my property to John Doe, not individually, but as Trustee of The John Doe Revocable Trust.”
In addition, most (or perhaps all) states require that you file a trustee’s certificate reciting the name of the trust and the names of all trustees and successor trustees. Your registry of deeds can advise specifically what is required in your state and may even provide a form for you to fill out.
