When to Update Your Existing Trust

How often should you review your trust?

The general rule we use with clients: every 3–5 years, or any time something significant changes in your life. For most families, a quick review every few years catches the things that drift out of alignment over time.

Life events that should trigger a review

Any of these should bring you back for a review:

• Marriage or divorce — yours, or one of the people named in your trust
• Birth or adoption of a child or grandchild
• Death of a spouse, child, trustee, or beneficiary
• New property purchase — especially real estate
• Sale of a major asset — make sure the trust still reflects what you own
• Significant change in net worth — up or down
• Moving to a new state — California rules may not apply
• A named trustee or executor becomes ill, unreliable, or estranged
• A beneficiary develops a special need or addiction
• Starting or selling a business
• Receiving an inheritance that significantly changes your situation

Legal changes that affect existing trusts

The law moves too. Things that have changed in recent years:

• The federal estate tax exemption has grown dramatically (and is set to drop in 2026, then move again)
• The SECURE Act changed how inherited retirement accounts must be distributed
• California Prop 19 changed property tax rules for transfers to children
• HIPAA rules have tightened access to medical records

Any of these can make older trust language outdated. Prop 19 in particular has changed the calculus for many California families who planned to leave the family home to a child.

What "updating" actually means

There are two main ways to update a trust:

• Amendment — a short document that changes specific provisions. Good for small changes.
• Restatement — a full replacement of the trust document, keeping the same trust name and creation date. Good for substantial overhauls.

Restatement is usually preferable when the changes are significant, because it produces a single clean document instead of an original plus several amendments that have to be read together.

Funding doesn't update itself either

If you've bought a new home, a rental, or a vacation property since the trust was created, that property has to be transferred in with a new deed. The trust document doesn't automatically scoop up new assets — you have to put them in the box.

The flip side is also true: if you've sold property that used to be in the trust, the recorded deeds are still part of the chain of title, but the trust no longer has an asset there.

What about a trust drafted by someone else?

If you have an existing trust prepared by an attorney or another LDA, we can review it, prepare amendments, or do a full restatement. We'll tell you honestly whether it needs work and what the practical fix looks like.

An estate plan that's never updated tends to fail in exactly the places life has changed the most. A short review every few years is the cheapest insurance you can buy.