Amending a Living Trust
To make changes to a Living Trust you generally need to execute an Amendment (which is like a Codicil to a Will). Note that changes which require an Amendment are things such as changing the successor trustee, changing the distribution plan, or changing certain tax clauses. Transferring assets in and out of a trust is not an Amendment, but rather is known as Trust Funding.
A Trust Amendment should be prepared and executed with the same formality as the original Living Trust. It is not something most people should attempt to tackle on their own. Most importantly, do not try to amend your Living Trust by crossing out lines or making changes to the original document. Your original trust was notarized and presumably executed with many formalities, all supervised by the drafting attorney. Writing on the trust document after it was signed and notarized simply leads to an obvious problem: The handwritten changes and cross-outs were not notarized. So as a general rule, Do Not Write on Your Original Trust or Will!
You do not need to return to the drafting attorney to amend a Living Trust. Any qualified Trusts & Estates attorney can handle it for you.
In some instances an attorney may recommend an Amended & Restated Trust. In this case the entire trust is re-written, but the name of the trust remains the same. In effect you are amending the entire trust. This allows a major revision of the Living Trust without the needing to re-title assets currently in the trust.
In short, amending a Living Trust is as important as the drafting of the original document. As always, be careful!
-Ken