Have you ever solved a Rubik’s Cube?

Of course not. They are scientifically impossible. Just a way to keep kids quiet on long road trips.

But you’ve definitely seen a Rubik’s Cube at some point. And although the concept seems simple enough—get the same colors on the same side of the cube—all the moving parts and three-dimensional reactions make your brain hurt.

Estate planning sometimes seems like a Rubik’s Cube.

You have all of these lengthy legal documents with strange words that do all sorts of different things that an attorney explained to you once but which you have now mostly forgotten.

Take trusts, for instance. You generally get a trust to avoid probate. But by itself, a trust is just some paper. It may be fancy paper—and it’s likely expensive paper—but it’s still just some paper. And paper alone usually does not avoid probate.

Funding Your Trust With Real Property

Real property (which I will use interchangeably with “real estate”) is often the most valuable type of asset a client owns. That makes it all the more important for those assets to avoid probate.

How do you do that? By funding your trust.