Real Estate Attorney Recommends Contacting Title Company in Transferring Deed

A couple is establishing a revocable living trust and one of their assets is a small office building in Phoenix. What language should they use on the deed transferring this office building to their revocable living trust?

Initially, the couple should be commended for knowing that a deed is required to transfer real property into a revocable living trust. Many husbands and wives form revocable living trusts, but fail to properly document the transfer of assets into the revocable living trust. Transferring automobiles requires motor vehicle title transfers, transferring personal property requires bills of sale, and transferring real property requires the drafting and recording of deeds.

The language in the deed to transfer the office building to the revocable living trust is basically the same as transferring the office building to a buyer. The couple should contact an Arizona real estate attorney or title company to draft the language. Also, although there will be an additional cost, they must get title insurance. In other words, if there is an unknown title problem, and they transfer their office building into the revocable living trust, the title problem may not be discovered until after they are dead when the office building is being sold by their heirs. Many title problems can be easily corrected during the transferor’s lifetime, but after the transferor is dead the correction of a title problem can often be time-consuming and expensive.