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Funding: a trust governs what is titled to it

Signing the trust creates it; funding it makes it work. A trust is created when a settlor with capacity indicates the intention to create one, names a definite beneficiary and gives the trustee duties (C.R.S. §15-5-402), but the property you want it to hold has to be put in its name. Real property is usually deeded to you as trustee, and a trust concerning land must be in a writing signed by the person creating it (§38-10-106). Bank and brokerage accounts are retitled to the trust, or name it as the payable-on-death or transfer-on-death beneficiary.

What is not titled to the trust passes some other way: by beneficiary designation, by joint ownership with survivorship, by a beneficiary deed recorded during your life (C.R.S. §15-15-402), or through your probate estate — where a pour-over will leaves it to your trustee. A periodic look at titles and designations is what keeps the plan you signed the plan that happens.

While you are living: your trust, your control

While a trust is revocable, the beneficiaries' rights are subject to your control and the trustee's duties are owed exclusively to you; the trustee may follow your direction even if it departs from the trust's terms (C.R.S. §15-5-603). Most settlors serve as their own trustee, so day to day nothing changes: you buy, sell, spend and give as before, in your name as trustee.

Colorado does not register a fully revocable trust while the settlor's power to revoke continues (C.R.S. §15-5-205(2)), and no Colorado filing is due when you sign. Registration later, by your successor, is optional.

Your successor trustee

Name the person or institution who will take over when you can no longer act and after your death, and an alternate. The successor becomes trustee by accepting — by the method your trust provides or, where it provides no exclusive one, by taking over the property or acting as trustee (C.R.S. §15-5-701). If no named successor can serve, a vacancy is filled by the person the qualified beneficiaries unanimously agree on, or by the court (§15-5-704(3)).

Tell your successor where the trust and your records are. Banks and title companies will ask the successor for a certification of trust rather than the whole document — a statement of the trust's existence and date, the settlor, the acting trustee, the trustee's powers in the transaction, revocability, how cotrustees sign and the name for title (C.R.S. §15-5-1013). If you name cotrustees, Colorado lets them act by majority when they cannot agree (§15-5-703).

Keeping it current

Unless the trust's terms expressly say it is irrevocable, you may revoke or amend it — for a trust created under an instrument executed on or after August 7, 2013 (C.R.S. §15-5-602). Life changes are the usual reasons: a marriage, a birth, a death, a move, a new property or business, or a successor who can no longer serve.

A divorce changes a trust by law: unless the trust's express terms, a court order or a marital contract provide otherwise, a divorce or annulment revokes the revocable dispositions to your former spouse and the former spouse's relatives, and their nominations as trustee or other fiduciary (C.R.S. §15-11-804). Updating the trust, your will and your beneficiary designations together keeps them consistent.

If you can no longer manage it

Your trust's incapacity clause says how your successor takes over — often on a physician's letter — and the trust stays revocable, with the successor managing it for you under its terms (C.R.S. §15-5-603). Medical decisions are a separate document: a medical durable power of attorney names an agent for treatment decisions (§15-14-506), and a declaration as to medical treatment states your wishes about life-sustaining procedures (§15-18-104).

What happens at your death

At your death the trust becomes irrevocable and your successor takes control of the property (C.R.S. §15-5-809). Colorado's statute then provides for two notices to the qualified beneficiaries: within 60 days after the successor learns the trust has become irrevocable, its existence, the settlor and their rights to request the relevant portions of the trust and a report; and within 60 days after the successor accepts, the acceptance and the successor's contact details (§15-5-813(2)(b), (c)). Colorado has no Notice of Trust filing.

The trust's property can answer for your estate's allowed claims and allowances to the extent your probate estate cannot (C.R.S. §15-15-103), and a surviving spouse's elective share can reach it (§15-11-202). Your successor reports to the beneficiaries at least annually and at termination (§15-5-813(3)), and distributes under the trust's terms.

Where to keep the original

Keep the signed original, every amendment and the funding records together, in a place your successor can reach, and give your successor a copy or tell them where it is. Colorado's will-deposit procedure is for wills (C.R.S. §15-11-515), not trusts, so the trust stays with you or with whomever you choose.

When a licensed Colorado attorney is the right next call

TrusteeClear explains what the statute provides; it does not review a trust, say what is missing from one, or draft changes. Many settlors return to a licensed Colorado attorney of their choosing after a marriage, divorce or death in the family, a move to or from Colorado, a new business or property, or when a beneficiary's circumstances change.