Real Estate Is the One That Needs a New Deed
Your house is usually the biggest thing the trust is meant to protect. It is also the only asset on the list that needs a brand new legal document to move.
A deed is the paper that says who owns the property. To move your Georgia home into the trust, a new deed has to be prepared, signed, and filed with the clerk of superior court in the county where the property sits. Until that deed exists, the house is still yours, not the trust’s. Putting the house in the trust is its own short process. How to put a house in a trust in Georgia walks through the deed itself.
Georgia law is direct about it. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-25(a) says a transfer of property in trust “shall require a transfer of legal title to the trustee.” A second rule matters for most homeowners. Under O.C.G.A. § 53-12-25(b), when the person handing over the property is also the trustee, the deed has to be recorded before the property counts as trust property. That is the normal setup for a Georgia family trust, so recording is not optional here.
People often think a deed does nothing until it is filed. That is not quite right. The deed works between you and your trust the moment it is signed and handed over. Filing is what makes it count against everyone else.
O.C.G.A. § 44-2-2 says it plainly. An unfiled deed loses to a later buyer or lender who acted in good faith and did not know about it. So filing guards the transfer from the outside world, and § 53-12-25(b) is what makes it stick for the trust.
Each property needs its own deed. Your home, a rental, raw land, and a lake house are four separate transfers, not one.
The tax question comes up every time. Georgia charges a transfer tax when real estate changes hands. A deed to or from a trustee is exempt under O.C.G.A. § 48-6-2(a)(9). The exemption applies only when nothing of value changes hands. Moving your home into your own trust is not a sale, so it fits. The recording fee still applies. It is a flat $25 per deed under O.C.G.A. § 15-6-77(f)(1)(A)(i).
If the deed never gets done, the house sits in your name. At your death it goes to probate no matter what the trust says. The court runs the timeline. Your spouse or children cannot sell it, refinance it, or transfer it until a judge gives them authority. The mortgage keeps coming due the whole time.
Bank and Brokerage Accounts Move With a Form, Not a Deed
Accounts are easier than real estate. There is no new document to draft and nothing to file at a courthouse.
You call the bank or the brokerage and ask for a change of ownership into the trust. Most institutions have a standard form for it. The account number usually stays the same and your day to day access does not change. The trust becomes the owner on record.
There is a second option, and the two get mixed up constantly because they are different tools under different Georgia laws. A bank account can carry a payable on death designation under O.C.G.A. § 7-1-813(b). A brokerage account is registered in transfer on death form instead, under O.C.G.A. § 53-5-67. Either one can name your trust.
Both of those do the same narrow job. They move the money at your death and skip probate. Neither one helps while you are alive. If nothing is set up, the bank will not simply hand the money over. What your family can access when you die is a separate question.
That gap is the reason retitling usually wins. If you have a stroke and cannot manage your own account, a payable on death form does nothing. Your successor trustee cannot step in, because the trust does not own the account yet. It only inherits it later. An account actually retitled into the trust covers both problems at once.
One more thing worth knowing. Say the account is in your name alone. No joint owner, no payable on death form. Nothing is set up to move it when you die, so it goes through your estate. Under O.C.G.A. § 53-8-15(a), the personal representative the court names holds title to it until they sign it over. That is the probate path, and it is the default for a plain account in one person’s name.
LLC and Business Interests Need a Written Assignment
If you own part of an LLC, that stake is an asset like any other. It moves into the trust with a written assignment. No deed, no bank form.
Most articles get the Georgia rule backwards, so it is worth stating slowly. Your LLC stake can be handed over by default. O.C.G.A. § 14-11-502 says it is transferable in whole or in part. Your own paperwork can change that. The articles of organization or a written operating agreement can block it.
What the assignment hands the trust is the money side. The trust gets the profits, the losses, and the payouts that used to come to you.
Voting is a separate question. Under O.C.G.A. § 14-11-503, the trust becomes a full member only if the other members all agree. Again, your operating agreement can change that. So the trust can end up owning the income without owning a vote.
The practical step is simple. Read your operating agreement before you sign. It can rewrite both rules. A one member LLC is usually easy, because there is nobody else to ask.
If the stake is still in your name when you die, it goes to probate. Nobody can act for the business while that plays out. Staff still show up. Vendors still call about bills. The landlord still wants rent. A business can lose real value in the months it takes a court to name someone who can sign.
What Does Not Go In
Some assets already skip probate on their own. Moving one into a trust either costs you money or cannot be done at all.
Retirement accounts are the big one. Health savings accounts are next. Then life insurance you own, most cars, and money you set aside for a child. Each one stays out for a different reason.
Those are written out one by one, with the law behind each, in what assets should not be in a trust in Georgia.
The Order to Do It In
Funding is not one task. It is a short list of separate errands. They do not all move at the same speed.
1
Write Down Everything You Own
List each property, each account, and each business stake. Note where it is held and roughly what it is worth. The list is what the whole job runs on.
2
Deed the Real Estate First
It takes the longest and it holds the most value. Each property gets its own deed, signed and filed in its own county.
3
Retitle the Accounts
Call each bank and brokerage and ask for the change of ownership form. Expect this to take a few calls, not one.
4
Assign the Business Interests
Read the operating agreement first. Then sign a written assignment of your stake to the trust.
5
Fix the Beneficiary Forms
Retirement accounts and life insurance are never retitled. Each one has its own form, and that form outranks your will and your trust.
6
Call Your Home Insurance Carrier
Once the deed is filed, the trust has to be added to the policy. If the trust owns the house and the policy names only you, the carrier can deny a claim.
Each step is walked through in order in how to fund a trust in Georgia after you sign it.
What Happens to an Asset You Leave Out
This is the part people find out about too late. A trust only controls what was actually moved into it.
If you already signed a trust and are not sure anything ever moved, that is the most common gap we see, and it is fixable while you are alive. It is not a sign anyone did bad work.
We have reviewed trusts that sat in a filing cabinet for years while the house and the bank accounts stayed in the owner’s name. When the owner died, everything went to probate anyway. The document existed. It controlled nothing.
Probate is not a formality in Georgia:
- Cost. A simple estate runs about $14,700 in attorney and court costs.
- Time. A simple estate takes about 13 months. A business or complex estate averages 25 months.
- Control. Your family cannot sell, refinance, or move the asset until the court gives them authority.
The document is not the plan. The funding is the plan. A trust with nothing in it is a very well drafted piece of paper.
If the trust is not yours and you are reading it for a parent, the same check applies. Reading through a parent’s old trust starts with the same question: does it own anything?
What a Funded Trust Actually Does
When the deeds are recorded, the accounts are retitled, and the business interests are assigned, the picture changes completely.
At your death the successor trustee simply steps in. No asset goes to court. Accounts stay reachable. Property can be managed or sold. The business has someone with authority on day one.
That is the whole point of the structure. The document creates it. The retitling makes it real.
Cost is usually the next question. What a revocable trust costs in Georgia is a flat fee, and the deed work is part of it.
If you want someone to check what is actually inside a trust you already have, a trust package review at The Hive Law is $1,050, flat fee. Melissa Breyer reads the documents and tells you which assets made it in and which ones did not.
Funding is one piece of a Georgia plan. The estate planning guide for Georgia families covers how the rest of it fits together.
Your first call is free, about 15 minutes, and happens by phone with Shawn. If you move forward, your next step is the Design Meeting with Melissa, which is credited toward your plan.
