Living Trusts services in Granite Shoals, TX

Service · Living Trusts

Living Trust Services in Granite Shoals, TX

A revocable living trust is the single most useful tool in modern estate planning. You stay in complete control while you're alive and well. When you become incapacitated or pass away, your successor trustee steps in immediately — no probate, no court, no public filings.

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Why a living trust

Stay in control. Skip probate. Stay private.

A revocable living trust is a legal container that owns your assets while you continue to use them exactly as you always have. You are the grantor who creates the trust, the trustee who manages it, and the beneficiary who enjoys it. Nothing about your daily financial life changes — you still write checks on your accounts, you still drive your car, you still live in your house. What changes is the title on the door.

Because the trust is the legal owner of those assets, they do not belong to your probate estate when you pass. They pass instantly to whoever you named as successor trustee, on the terms you set out in the trust document. No court, no public filing, no waiting. That is the entire reason living trusts exist, and it is the reason we recommend one to almost every Hill Country family with a home, a business interest, or more than one account that matters.

Side by side

How a living trust compares to a will alone.

Wills and trusts are not the same instrument. They do related work and most families benefit from having both — but understanding the difference is how you decide what your plan actually needs.

Option A

Will only

The default for families without a plan

Takes effect only after death — does nothing during incapacity
Must be probated in court before anything is distributed
Becomes public record once filed
Texas probate is faster than most states but still 4–9 months on average
Court oversight in dependent administration if no executor named
Does not help if you cannot make financial decisions for yourself
Real-estate transfer triggers homestead and tax notices

Option B

Will + Living trust

What we build for most families

Trust takes effect the moment it is signed and funded
Successor trustee can act immediately on incapacity
Trust assets bypass probate completely
Stays private — no public filing of trust contents
Pour-over will catches anything the trust does not
Works during your lifetime, not only at death
Continues to operate through dementia, stroke, or extended hospitalization

How funding works

The trust is only as good as what is inside it.

Signing a trust does not put your assets into it. Funding does. Funding is the work of changing the title on each asset so the trust — not you personally — owns it. For a house, that means executing and recording a new deed with the county clerk. For a bank account, it means a quick visit with the banker to retitle. For a brokerage account, it is a few pages of new paperwork. For LLC interests and partnership units, it is a written assignment from you to the trust.

We have done this enough times in Burnet, Llano, Travis, and Blanco counties that we know which clerks accept what format, which banks have which forms, and which brokerages require what kind of authorization letter. We do not hand you a list and wish you luck — we walk through funding with you item by item until your worksheet is checked off.

Real estate retitled by recorded deed — We prepare and file the deed with the county clerk.
Bank and brokerage accounts retitled — Or designated as transfer-on-death where simpler.
LLC and partnership interests assigned — Through a written assignment that respects your operating agreement.
Retirement and life insurance beneficiaries aligned — Trust named primary or contingent depending on tax strategy.

Funding worksheet

What we retitle when we fund your trust.

We work through this list with you in person. Most clients finish funding within four to six weeks of signing the trust documents.

Primary residence and homestead
Deeded into the trust while preserving the Texas homestead exemption.
Lake home or second residence
Deeded into the trust to avoid out-of-state probate down the line.
Investment property and rentals
Often into a trust-owned LLC for liability separation.
Brokerage and investment accounts
Retitled or designated transfer-on-death depending on broker.
Bank accounts and CDs
Retitled in person at the branch, usually a 20-minute visit.
LLC membership interests
Assigned to the trust by written document, filed with the LLC records.
Vehicles, boats, and trailers
Optional — sometimes simpler to leave out of the trust for daily use.
Life insurance and retirement
Beneficiary forms updated, never retitled directly.

Probate in the Highland Lakes

What you are actually avoiding.

Texas probate, especially with independent administration, is considered one of the simpler probate processes in the country. Even so, the simplest Texas estate going through standard probate takes between four and nine months from the date of death to the date assets can be distributed. Complex estates — those with a business interest, multiple properties, or contested beneficiaries — routinely take a year or more. In Burnet County and Llano County, the courthouses are responsive and the dockets are reasonable. But responsive does not mean fast, and reasonable does not mean private.

Everything filed in probate is public record. Anyone can walk into the clerk's office and read the will, the inventory, and the executor's accounting. For families in small Hill Country communities — where everyone knows everyone — that public exposure of net worth, asset locations, and beneficiary identities is often the part that bothers them most. A funded living trust avoids it entirely. There is no court filing. There is no public inventory. The trust simply continues to operate under a new trustee, and the only people who know what is in it are the people you choose to tell.

There is also a real cost difference. Court-filed inventories, executor's bond requirements, ad litem appointments for missing or minor beneficiaries, and the time required to publish notices to creditors all add up. Most Texas probate estates spend $3,000 to $10,000 on these costs alone before any distribution happens. A living trust funded properly while you are alive incurs none of them.

About living trusts

Questions families ask before they sign.

No. While you are alive and competent, you are the trustee. You can buy, sell, refinance, move money, and use property exactly as you do now. The trust is a container — not a third party with veto power. You can also amend or revoke the trust at any time, which is what the revocable in revocable living trust means.

Not when the trust is drafted correctly. A qualifying revocable trust preserves the Texas homestead exemption as long as the grantor (you) retains the present right of occupancy and the power to revoke. We use trust language that the Texas appraisal districts and homestead-exemption statutes accept without question.

No. A revocable living trust is what the IRS calls a grantor trust. For income-tax purposes, the trust is invisible — all income and deductions flow through to your personal 1040 exactly as before. There is no separate trust tax return required during your lifetime.

Federal law (the Garn–St. Germain Act) specifically protects transfers of residential property into a revocable trust by the borrower. As long as you remain a beneficiary and continue to occupy the home, your lender cannot call the loan due. We have transferred hundreds of mortgaged homes into trusts in Burnet, Llano, and Travis counties without a single issue.

A revocable trust does not protect against your own creditors during your lifetime. The trade-off for being able to revoke the trust is that the assets are still legally reachable. If creditor protection is the goal, we layer in irrevocable structures (asset-protection trusts, ILITs, LLCs). For most families, the revocable trust is the foundation and protection is added in the next layer.

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