Fund your living trust, not just draft it
A living trust only keeps your home out of probate once the home is actually transferred into it. We prepare and e-record the deed that moves your property in — and file the change-in-ownership form so it isn’t reassessed — for a flat $325 per property.
Meet Quinnie Do
Quinnie is a Registered Legal Document Assistant, a Registered IRS Tax Preparer, and a Commissioned Notary Public who has prepared and e-recorded thousands of California deeds across all 58 counties. Because she is also a notary, she can notarize your funding deed in the San Jose office and e-record it the same day. She serves clients in English and Vietnamese, with Spanish through an on-staff partner.
What funding a trust means — and why your home isn’t protected until it’s done
Funding your trust means moving your assets — most importantly your home — out of your personal name and into the name of your living trust. A trust only controls what has actually been transferred into it, so until a new deed is recorded, the home is still held in your individual name and can still pass through probate. Signing and notarizing the trust document alone does not move the property.
TruPoint Legal prepares the trust transfer deed, claims the applicable exclusion so your base-year value is preserved, files the change-in-ownership form the County Assessor needs, and e-records the deed the same business day in any of California’s 58 counties — for a flat $325 per property. A California real estate attorney typically charges $1,000–$2,000 to prepare and record a single deed, with the consultation billed separately.
Prepared and reviewed by Quinnie Do, Registered Legal Document Assistant #268, Santa Clara County (verify ↗).
A signed trust in a drawer protects nothing
Online and DIY services can produce the trust document cheaply, but they usually stop at the paperwork. They rarely prepare or record the deed that funds it — and rarely make clear that funding is a separate, essential step.
So the binder gets signed, notarized, and tucked into a file cabinet, and the house is never deeded in. Families discover this at the worst possible moment: grieving a parent, they open the binder and find a beautifully drafted plan and a home that was never transferred into it. The court reads the recorded deed, not the intention — and the home lands in the exact probate the trust was built to prevent.
- A trust controls only what has actually been moved into it.
- An unfunded home still goes through probate — slow, public, and costly.
- The fix is a single recorded deed — once you know to record it.
Done right, your property taxes don’t change
Moving your home into your own revocable trust is not a real change of ownership — you are still the person who owns and benefits from it. So it should not trigger a reassessment, and your property tax bill should stay the same.
That only holds when the correct exclusion is claimed on the deed and the matching change-in-ownership form is filed with the County Assessor, confirming the beneficial ownership has not changed. Miss that step and a home can be reassessed by mistake. TruPoint Legal handles the deed and the accompanying filing together, every time — the exclusion form is a flat $100 add-on, itemized before you commit.
Your home inside the trust, in three steps
You start the intake
You tell us the property and the trust it belongs in on our online intake form. We review your trust and current recorded deed to match its exact name and how title is held today.
We prepare the deed
We draft the trust transfer deed to your county’s format, claim the applicable exclusion so it isn’t reassessed, verify the legal description against the record, and prepare the change-in-ownership form. Sign before a notary in our San Jose office.
We e-record & file
We e-record the deed the same business day when signed before noon, file the change-in-ownership form with the County Assessor, and send you the recorded copy for your binder.
The probate your trust was supposed to avoid
When the home never makes it into the trust, the estate goes through California probate anyway. Statutory fees are set on the gross value of the estate — before the mortgage is subtracted — and the family waits while the court works through it. A recorded trust transfer deed is what keeps you out of all three.
$325 flat per property — no surprises
An unfunded trust can send the home through roughly $50,000 of probate. TruPoint Legal prepares the funding deed right the first time at a published flat fee, reviewed by a human Registered Legal Document Assistant.
- Deed prepared to your County Recorder’s exact format
- Trust name and date matched to your trust document
- Legal description verified against the existing record
- Applicable exclusion claimed · documentary transfer tax included
- Same-day e-recording in any of 58 California counties
County fees & optional add-ons
County recording and government fees are collected at intake and remitted to the county on your behalf — they are not TruPoint fees. We itemize every applicable fee for your specific transfer before any work begins.
Your funding questions, answered plainly
Does signing my living trust put my house in the trust?
I used LegalZoom or an online service — can you still fund it?
What happens if I never fund my trust?
How much does it cost to fund a trust in California?
Will transferring my home into my trust raise my property taxes?
Will this affect my mortgage?
I have more than one property. Can you fund them all?
How long does it take?
Can a Legal Document Assistant prepare a trust transfer deed?
Trust-funding services also available in Tiếng Việt · Español · We speak English
Make sure your whole plan is in place
Don’t leave the house out of the plan
Flat $325 per property, prepared and reviewed by a human Registered Legal Document Assistant, e-recorded the same business day in all 58 California counties. Make sure your trust actually holds your home.