If you’ve chosen to create a revocable living trust as part of your estate plan, this affords a great deal of privacy, which can be amplified by creating a memorandum of trust. This memorandum is a synopsis of the entire trust document which allows assets to be transferred inside the trust while also preserving the identity of trustees and grantors.
In general, you most likely selected a living trust because it avoids probate. A memorandum of trust helps to keep your personal business private during your lifetime as you fund the trust as the grantor.
When you go to your financial institution to give directions for ownership of an asset held by you to be transferred into the trust and to you as a trustee, the institution will request a copy of that trust agreement for its files.
But if you primarily created this trust to protect your private identity, you’ll have legitimate concerns about this being on record with the institution because the document details all of the property, assets and people that will be involved in this transfer upon death.
You can ask your attorney to create a short affidavit of trust or memorandum of trust instead, which covers who created the trust and when, the name to be used for the trust, the initial trustee and successor trustee names who signed the trust agreement, a statement that the trust is revocable and what powers the trustee is eligible to exercise over the assets. Make sure that you work directly with an estate planning attorney in MA to verify that your memorandum of trust meets any state requirements.
