What do I do about bank, brokerage and credit union accounts?

With respect to banks, because of the Patriot Act, we found that it's almost impossible to change the registration without going in, in person.

What we recommend you do, is that you print out the instruction letter for the funding from our program, you print out the certification of trustee from the program, you call your bank, you make an appointment to go in and you tell the bank on the phone what you want to do.

You want to make an appointment to come in and change the registration on your bank accounts to the name of the trustees of the revocable trust. This should save you some time and assure that you find someone at the bank who truly knows what they're doing. We have found that credit unions tend to be more sophisticated when it comes to trusts and that the process of reregistering accounts in most credit unions is more easeful.

Most brokerage houses like TD Ameritrade, Charles Schwab, Vanguard, Fidelity have their own forms that you can use to change account registrations into the trust. Sometimes the forms are a bit daunting, so feel free to call the brokerage and ask for help filling out the form. There again, you can always make an appointment to go in, in person, and have somebody walk you through the form. Take the certification of trustee, take the instruction letter, so that the person who's helping you will have all the information that they need.