Before you open anything, it helps to name what you are really worried about. Most people in your seat are afraid of two things. One, that they will find something broken and it will be too late to fix. Two, that they will find nothing and still not know if it is safe. Both fears are fixable, and neither one requires you to understand the whole document. The right place to start is with what actually goes wrong most often.
What to Check First in Your Parent’s Old Trust: Is It Funded?
A trust only controls what it owns. Signing the trust does not move anything into it. Moving property in is a second, separate step. Lawyers call it funding.
Georgia law is direct about this. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-25(a) says that a “transfer of property in trust shall require a transfer of legal title to the trustee.” Legal title has to actually change hands. No transfer, no trust property.
This is where most old plans break. The trust gets signed. The folder goes in a drawer. The house, the accounts, and the land never get retitled. Years later the family opens the folder and finds a well-written trust that owns nothing.
An empty trust does not fail quietly. It fails at the worst moment. Everything left outside the trust goes through Georgia probate anyway, which is the exact cost and delay the trust was bought to prevent. For the step-by-step version of this, see how to fund a trust in Georgia.
How to Check If Your Parent’s House Is Really in the Trust
Start with the house. It is usually the largest thing your parent owns, and it is the asset most often left out.
Pull the current deed. Deeds are public records, and they are filed in the county where the property sits. Read the line that names the owner.
You want it to read something like “Jane Doe, Trustee of the Jane Doe Revocable Trust.” If it just says “Jane Doe,” the house is not in the trust, no matter what the trust document says.
There is a second trap here, and it catches families constantly. A deed that was signed but never recorded does not count. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-25(b) says that for real estate to become trust property in a trust where the person transferring it is also a trustee, the deed “shall additionally be recorded in the appropriate real property records.” That is the normal setup for a parent who is their own trustee. A signed deed sitting in the folder never moved the house.
One warning before anyone fixes this the fast way. Families in this spot are often told to just add the adult child’s name to the deed, or to have the parent sign the house over now. That looks like the same result. It is not. A house that passes at death has its value reset to what it is worth on the date of death, under 26 U.S.C. § 1014(a)(1). A house signed over during life can lose that reset. Under 26 U.S.C. § 1015(a) a child who receives a gift keeps the parent’s original cost, which can be what the parent paid decades ago. Sell the house later and the capital gains tax gets figured from that old number. Adding the child’s name instead of signing the whole house over may keep the reset, but only if the deed is a survivorship deed, the parent paid for the house, and the parent dies first. If the parent keeps living in the house after signing it over, the tax result can be different, so get advice before counting on either outcome. A deed into the trust keeps the reset. A deed to the kids puts it at risk.
If the deed check comes back wrong, that is the single most valuable thing you will find. It is also usually fixable while your parent is alive. See what happens to your house when you die in Georgia for what is at stake if it stays out.
Check the Bank and Investment Accounts Next
Pull one recent statement for every account. You are reading one thing only: the name at the top.
An account owned by the trust is titled in the trustee’s name, the same pattern as the deed. An account titled in your parent’s name alone is outside the trust.
Watch out for a look-alike. Some accounts have a “payable on death” or “transfer on death” name on them. That is not the same as trust ownership. Those accounts skip probate but never touch the trust. So the trust’s rules about who gets what, and when, do not reach them at all.
Retirement accounts are the exception, and this one is not a mistake. An IRA or a 401(k) is usually left in your parent’s own name on purpose. Moving one into a trust can trigger a tax bill right away. These accounts pass by beneficiary form instead. That form is the next thing to check. To see what belongs inside a trust and what does not, read what assets should go in a trust in Georgia.
This check surprises people most. A beneficiary form is a contract with the company holding the money. The trust document does not override it.
Say the trust splits everything equally among three children. Now say a life insurance policy still names an ex-spouse from 1994. The trust does nothing here. The insurance company pays the name on the form.
Georgia says this in plain terms. O.C.G.A. § 33-25-11(a) says life insurance “shall inure exclusively to the benefit of the person for whose use and benefit such insurance is designated in the policy.”
That same statute holds a trap. Look at whether the form names a person or names “my estate.” If it names the estate, § 33-25-11(a) says the money “shall become a part of the insured’s estate for all purposes.” Those two words drag the whole policy into probate. They also expose it to your parent’s creditors.
Work retirement plans from a private employer add one more rule. The federal law is 29 U.S.C. § 1055. Under it, a married worker’s 401(k) or pension death benefit goes to the surviving spouse. The usual way around it is a written consent the spouse signed. It has to be notarized, or witnessed by the plan. An IRA is different and has no such rule. If your parent remarried after signing the trust, that gap matters.
Ask for a current beneficiary form for each life insurance policy, IRA, 401(k), and annuity. Read the first name and the backup name on each one. Compare both to what the trust says.
Is the Named Successor Trustee Still the Right Person?
Find the section of the trust that names who takes over. Then find who is named after that person.
Ask four questions about each name. Is this person still alive? Are they still able? Are they still willing? Are they still in the family?
An old trust often names a sibling who has since died, a friend nobody has spoken to in fifteen years, or a bank department that no longer exists. A trust with no working trustee is a trust that needs a court to fix it.
Georgia softens this, but only partly. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-201(b) says a “trust shall never fail for want of a trustee.” Subsection (c) says that if the trust names a person to fill the vacancy, or gives a method for picking one, that is what controls. Subsection (g) says a successor trustee “shall have all the authority of the original trustee.”
That is the good news. Now say the trust names nobody who can serve and gives no method for picking one. Georgia gives the family a free step first. Under § 53-12-201(d), the qualified beneficiaries can name a trustee themselves, as long as they all agree. No judge is needed. Only when that does not work does § 53-12-201(e) send someone to court to petition for a new trustee. That is time, money, and a filing your family did not plan for.
One practical note while you are here. A bank does not need your parent’s whole trust document. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-280 lets a trustee hand over a short certification of trust instead, signed by the trustee, confirming the trust exists and what powers the trustee has. Ask whether one was ever prepared. If you want the fuller picture of what the job involves, see what actually happens when a successor trustee settles a trust in Georgia, and who should be the trustee of a living trust in Georgia.
What Changed in the Family Since Your Parent Signed
Read the list of beneficiaries out loud. Then compare it to the family as it exists today.
Look for people who have been born, people who have died, people who married in, and people who divorced out. Grandchildren born after the trust was signed are frequently left out entirely, because the document names children by name instead of describing a class.
Divorce needs its own look. Most people get the Georgia rule backwards. O.C.G.A. § 53-4-49 treats an ex-spouse as if they died first. Now read the first four words of that statute: “All provisions of a will.” The automatic fix reaches a will and nothing else. It does not reach the trust. It does not reach a power of attorney. It does not reach a beneficiary form. Those stay as written until someone changes them by hand.
One situation is worth handing to a lawyer instead of solving yourself. Ask whether any beneficiary now gets means-tested disability benefits. If one does, an inheritance paid straight to them can put those benefits at risk. There are trust structures built for this. An old document written before the diagnosis will not have one.
Look at the flip side too. A beneficiary may have creditors, a bankruptcy, an addiction, or a shaky marriage. Money paid in one lump sum can vanish the day it lands. A trust can hold the money and release it over time instead. Many older trusts do not, because nobody needed that back then.
Does the Trust Still Match Georgia Law?
Start with the reassuring part. Georgia’s current trust code applies to your parent’s trust no matter how old it is. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-1(b) says the chapter applies “to any trust regardless of the date such trust was created.” Two limits are written into it. It cannot take away rights that have already vested. And it gives way where another Georgia law says otherwise. Georgia did not leave old trusts behind.
So the age of the document is not the risk. The risk is the document’s own instructions. They were written for a world that has since changed.
Estate tax language is the clearest example. Many trusts from the 1990s and early 2000s force a split into two shares when the first spouse dies. That made sense then. The federal estate tax exemption was a small fraction of what it is now, and the split saved real money. For 2026 the federal exemption is $15,000,000 per person. Georgia has no state estate tax. A forced split can now do nothing but lock up half the money and create paperwork for a surviving spouse who never needed it.
Digital accounts are the second example. Georgia’s law on fiduciary access to digital assets sits in O.C.G.A. Title 53, Chapter 13. Georgia enacted it in 2018. A trust signed before 2018 almost certainly says nothing about online accounts. A successor trustee then has to argue with email providers, banks, and photo services with no written authority to point at.
Retirement account language is the third example, and it is the newest one. Many trusts written before 2020 were built around the old stretch rule. Back then a child who inherited a parent’s IRA could pull the money out slowly. They could spread it over their own lifetime. Congress ended that. The federal law is 26 U.S.C. § 401(a)(9)(H). Under it, most people who are not the surviving spouse now have 10 years to empty an inherited IRA or 401(k). Some older trusts still tell the trustee to pass those withdrawals straight to the beneficiary. That was harmless under the old rule. Under the 10-year rule it can hand someone the whole account at once, and the tax bill with it. That is far sooner than your parent planned. This rule sets how fast the account must be emptied. It does not change who gets it.
Find the Other Three Documents, Not Just the Trust
A trust is one document in a package of four. The other three fail in their own ways. They are easy to skip past, because the trust is the part everyone talks about.
The pour-over will is the safety net. It catches anything that was never moved into the trust. It sends that property to the trust after death. It is worth having. But it is still a gift made by a will. So the property goes through probate first and lands in the trust after. A pour-over will saves the gift, not the probate. That is why the funding check matters more than anything else on this list.
The financial power of attorney covers what the trust does not. Say your parent loses capacity and an account sits outside the trust. Without a valid power of attorney, the family has to ask a court for a conservatorship. Check that the named agent is still alive. Check that they are still willing. Check that your parent would still pick them today.
The advance healthcare directive names who speaks for your parent on medical care. A hospital asks for this one first, often at 2 a.m. It is also the one most often missing from the folder.
What You Can Actually Do About It Depends on One Thing
What happens next depends on where your parent is right now. There are three very different situations. Mixing them up is what makes people either panic or wait too long.
Your parent is alive and has capacity. This is the best case by far. A revocable trust can be changed or rewritten. New deeds can be signed and recorded. Beneficiary forms can be updated in an afternoon. Everything on this list is fixable. It is also the cheapest it will ever be. Your only real job is to raise the subject.
There are two ways to fix a Georgia trust while your parent still has capacity. An amendment is a short document. It changes one piece and leaves the rest alone. It fits a single swap, like naming a new successor trustee. A restatement rewrites the trust from front to back, but it keeps the original trust’s name and signing date. Because the name does not change, anything already titled in the trust stays put. Nobody has to redo the deeds. O.C.G.A. § 53-12-40 sets the ground rules for both. A person can only change or cancel their own trust if the trust gave them that power. And the change has to be in writing and signed by them. So the first page to read is whatever the trust says about making changes. See how to amend or restate a trust in Georgia for the full walkthrough.
Your parent is alive but has lost capacity. The trust usually cannot be changed now. The successor trustee steps in. But that person only has the powers the trust already grants. An agent under the power of attorney handles what sits outside the trust. That only works if the document exists and is broad enough.
Some funding gaps cannot be closed at this stage at all. That is the honest answer. It is also why the first situation is worth acting on early.
Your parent has died. The trust becomes irrevocable, and two clocks start.
O.C.G.A. § 53-12-242(a) gives the trustee 60 days to notify the qualified beneficiaries. The notice tells them the trust exists and gives them the trustee’s name and mailing address.
O.C.G.A. § 53-12-45(a) gives anyone two years from the death to file a court challenge to the trust’s validity. That deadline only limits when someone can challenge the trust. It does not limit how long the trust itself can legally stay open.
Anything never funded goes through Georgia probate, the same as if there had been no plan. Property that was actually titled in the trust does not wait for any of that. A funded trust usually distributes in 30 to 60 days.
How to Get an Old Georgia Trust Reviewed
You do not have to make this call yourself. Reading a twenty-year-old trust is one job. Matching it against deeds, account titles, and beneficiary forms is another. Both are what a trust package review is for.
Melissa Breyer reads all four documents: the trust, the pour-over will, the financial power of attorney, and the healthcare directive. She checks whether the trust was funded. She checks whether the beneficiary forms match what the trust says. She checks whether the documents still do what your parent wants. If she finds gaps, she fixes the documents and sends them back for review. The full review is a flat fee of $1,050, with no hourly billing.
Sometimes a review is not the right answer. The structure may no longer fit the family at all. Melissa will say so instead of patching a document that should be replaced. Then the conversation moves to a new revocable living trust and what that costs.
Here is how getting started works:
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 Shawn and Melissa, which is credited toward your plan.
Keeping an old plan current is one piece of a working Georgia estate plan. Did your parent sign the trust in another state before moving here? Then start with whether an out-of-state trust is still valid in Georgia instead.
