Trust Checking Account
If you created a revocable living trust, it’s a good idea to open a checking account in the name of the trust. Checks made to the trust can be deposited only to an account bearing the trust name.
For example, perhaps you were interested in buying a house that you would own in the name of the trust. If you wrote a check for a good faith deposit on a house you were interested in buying, then changed your mind after the inspection, the escrow company has to issue the refund to the trust.
You can’t cash a check made to the trust. You have to deposit the check into a checking account in the trust’s name.
Life Insurance Beneficiaries
Many parents or grandparents want their children or grandchildren to receive the money from a life insurance policy. They name those children or grandchildren as the life insurance policy beneficiaries.
But what if there are children or grandchildren born after that policy is executed? Those children won’t receive the money.
If you name your trust as the beneficiary for the life insurance policy, those after-born children/grandchildren can share the policy money.
The trust should have a provision that children/grandchildren born after the trust is created are also beneficiaries of the trust and the trust is deemed modified to include them. Then when the trustee collects on the life insurance policy, she can distribute the money to all the children/grandchildren per trust instructions.
Bank Accounts
If you don’t have a trust or will that distributes your property to your beneficiaries, here’s one option for passing on your checking and savings accounts without probate.
Ask your bank for a pay-on-death beneficiary form. You can name the persons who you give your funds to after you pass. Those persons then present your death certificate to the bank to claim the money in your accounts.
Deeds
Hawaii has a centralized land recording system (the other is Washington, DC). This means it’s easy in Hawaii to find land ownership. When you search your name, your deed should be listed with your name as Grantee for property that you currently own.
If it’s missing, you can send a copy of your deed – with the recording stamp on the top of the first page – to the Bureau with a letter requesting that its records be updated to show your deed.
Many times homeowners believe the bank owns the home until the mortgage is paid and that they don’t have the deed. Homeowners own the home at the time of purchase, so they do have a deed.
The unstamped deed will usually be with the mortgage documents given at the time the home was bought. After the BOC records the deed, it will mail the recorded deed to the homeowners.
The file stamp on the top of the first page of the deed shows the date and time the deed was recorded in the Bureau of Conveyances.
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