Beneficiary designations and asset titling are an important component of estate planning. Ensuring your clients have a trust is one thing, but imagine if their trustees don’t know where anything is, let alone know what’s available for caring for beneficiaries who are minors or paying for funeral arrangements. This guide maps out everything you need to know to help your clients get their account beneficiary designations and asset titling correct for their estate plans.

Four Documents in a Revocable Trust That Map Out How the Trust is Funded

These are the four documents that should be included in every trust-based estate plan. If your client's existing trust does not have these, then consider adding them to the existing document set:

1. Exhibit A
2. Tangible Personal Property (TPP) list
3. Business assignment
4. Property deed

Document #1: Exhibit A

Exhibit A is a crucial and helpful document for successor trustees: it lists out clients’ bank accounts, brokerage accounts, life insurance, annuities, and any other assets they have of value. Exhibit A answers the question successor trustees always ask when clients pass away and leave them their estate plans: “This is great, but I have no idea what they owned or where things are.”

Having the client write down the financial institution and account numbers can also be helpful. It's important to know that just because it is written on the Exhibit A, it does not mean that that brokerage account is now a trust asset. But, it will allow the trustee to locate the accounts.

Document #2: Tangible Personal Property (TPP) List

The TPP is a fillable list that is mentioned in trust documents to allow the client to name individuals to receive tangible property. This means things like the family table Bible, or their favorite baseball jersey. This doesn't mean writing in who gets the family home or other significant assets. Sidebar: the TPP often gets left off when client met with an estate attorney in the past (the TPP list is usually an addendum to the trust; these are the things that need to be considered that sometimes aren't in the estate documents to begin with.).

Note: You can download a blank TPP List template from Encore’s Knowledge Base.

Document #3: Business Assignment

Is your client a business owner? A business assignment is a basic document that transfers any interest clients own into their trust, similar to real estate. If your client owns a business (or even part of one), consider helping them assign those business interests to their trusts in order to avoid probate. Unlike real estate transfers, business assignments will not be filed or recorded anywhere.

While your client is alive, business assignments do not change how you operate the business. Upon their death, this document would be available to show any business partners or financial institutions that the business interest is an asset of their trust.

Note: You can request Encore’s Support Team of estate planners and paralegals to prepare business assignments for your clients as part of their estate plans.

Document #4: Property Deed

Having the property deed titled into the name of the trust is one of the best ways to ensure your clients’ trusts are funded. There are two deed types that can help ensure real estate is transferred that your clients’ trusts without needing to go through probate: Quitclaim / Warranty Deed and Beneficiary Deed (aka “Lady Bird” Deed; only can be used in states that allow it).

Why Quitclaim / Warranty Deeds are the Best Option for Most Clients

For most clients, Quitclaim / Warranty dreads are often the best deed option for several reasons. Here are a few key reasons:

• Clients retain all rights as a homeowner.
• Quitclaim deeds do not affect your ability to sell or transfer title to another party.
  • You’ll want to make sure your client’s checking account is also held in the name of the trust to ensure the proceeds from homesellers are wired smoothly.
  • Also ensures your heirs receive a full step-up in basis at the time of the trustor’s death.
• If structured properly, it also provides beneficiaries with protection from creditors, lawsuits, and divorce.

Given how each county’s assessor’s office (the local government entity who keeps track of property deeds) has different rules and processes for doing so (e.g., some require in-person visits to complete the re-titling process), you can request Encore’s Support Team of estate planners and paralegals to re-title your clients’ property deeds into their trusts, regardless of where they got their estate plans done.

Note: It is good practice to name your trust as an "additional insured" on any homeowner insurance policy.

Why Beneficiary (“Lady Bird”) Deeds are Good Options for Those with Specific Circumstances
You can read in-depth about beneficiary aka “Lady Bird” deeds in the Encore Knowledge Base (a free Encore account is required to access the article).

Related: How to Review Estate Documents Quickly and Accurately

How To Re-Title the Most Common Assets Into a Trust

We outline the most common assets your clients should name into their trust.

How To Re-title Bank or Brokerage and Non-Qualified Accounts Into the Trust

Ideally, your clients should move all financial accounts into the trust. Since the revocable trust does not have a separate tax ID number, it should not be necessary to change account numbers. The last thing we want the estate planning process to do is complicate your client's life changing account numbers could do this since they likely have automatic deposits and withdrawals that will impact those accounts.

If a financial institution requires changing account numbers, there is also an option to name the trust as a beneficiary of the account. Although it is not moving the accountant into the trust now, it will avoid probate if the trust is named. The only difference is during incapacity. Your power of attorney would control this account that is not in the trust. Your trustee will control it if it is titled into the trust today.

How To Retitle Retirement and Qualified Accounts Into the Trust

For retirement accounts and other qualified accounts for a married couple, the spouse is almost always going to be named as the primary beneficiary of those accounts. This is because a spouse gets rollover benefits that nobody else gets. The real question lies with, “Who will be the contingent beneficiary in these situations?”

A common option is to name individuals in this case, which can be good. It all depends on how the estate plan is written and what you're trying to accomplish with the estate plan. The other option is to name a trust. This can be done in situations where a client is looking to exert more control over their beneficiaries.

Keep in mind that if a trust is named as a beneficiary, every trust that we do at Encore Estate Plans will have the appropriate conduit see through pass through language to make sure that we are not accelerating any tax implications to the trust or to the individual beneficiaries.

How To Name Your Trust as the Beneficiary of the Life Insurance Policy

 Generally speaking, naming your revocable trust as a beneficiary of your life insurance policies will provide clients what they need. There are always exceptions to this general statement. However, this will provide the control a client is seeking while also not making it unduly burdensome to collect the proceeds.

The Bottom Line

A signed living trust can quickly become a stack of expensive papers if it’s not funded correctly. Re-titling your clients’ assets like financial accounts (e.g., checking and savings accounts, taxable brokerage accounts) and their real estate property into their trusts will ensure the trusts are funded. Also, assets titled into trusts avoid going through the probate process, which is often an arduous, months-long (years-long, even, depending on how backlogged the local probate court system is) process. EncorEstate Plans’s Support Team can help ensure your clients’ real estate property – often their biggest assets – are re-titled into their trusts correctly via Encore’s standalone deed filing service.

Meet EncorEstate Plans: The #1 Estate Planning Software for RIAs

The 2025 Kitces AdvisorTech Survey rated EncorEstate Plans as the top estate planning software for RIAs based on market share. Here's why:

Estate Document Creation Flexibility and Customization

In theory, many mass affluent clients have the same (if not similar) needs when it comes to estate planning. But, being able to customize estate documents to adapt them to your clients' needs is crucial, especially when it comes to beneficiaries. One-size-fits-all estate document templates clearly don't fit all!

Human Review of Every Estate Plan Document

Encore's team of estate planners and paralegals takes five business days (using a 60-point review of every estate plan) to comb through each estate plan and ensure everything is correct and accurately reflects your clients' wishes.

EncorEstate will also answer any and all of your questions about estate planning and or your clients' plans over live chat, phone, and or email at no cost (we don't provide legal advice). Encore's unlimited human estate planner support to advisors is why we consistently score the highest advisor satisfaction ratings in industry surveys like Kitces.com AdvisorTech and Advisor Productivity Surveys, and T3/Inside Information Advisor Technology Survey.

And according to a Reddit user on the CFP sub-Reddit, Encore's "Support is unmatched":

Estate Plan Notarization

EncorEstate provides a one-click option in its software platform to request a mobile notary and witnesses to be sent to your client's house for estate document signing.

Trust Funding

EncorEstate's full-service deed prep and recording ensures your clients' trusts are properly funded with their real estate. Encore's Support Team of estate planners and paralegals will pull the last recorded deed, prepare the deed, and prepare all county-specific documents – even if you’re not an Encore customer.

You nor your clients need to go to the assessor's office and or hunt down various forms because Encore will do it all for you and your clients.

If you're evaluating estate planning software providers, get a book a conversation with EncorEstate.