Changing a beneficiary in a trust doesn't trigger transfer tax until the beneficiary interest actually activates, though some attorneys charge the stamp anyway. Mallory explains the timing, and Speaker A shares a story about executing a quitclaim deed in hours for a FSBO seller who needed to move after gaining custody of his grandson.
When you put a property in a trust and then change the beneficiary, is that a taxable event? Most attorneys— I'm going to give you my non-CPA, and if Mallory has an answer to this, most attorneys are going to record it like a regular closing and charge a tax stamp. I don't even know if Florida has, if they even have them. I'm assuming they do. Anything to add, Mallory? No? You agree?
Typically, when the property is established in a trust and you create some sort of beneficiary, as soon as that beneficiary is triggered, that's typically when the tax is triggered as well. So I don't want to get too far into the weeds on that, but that's okay.
That's kind of why I said that, Mallory, because I don't want to be the one that— I would never— my attorney wouldn't be the one that didn't report that, and then you get whacked. But you know what I mean? You're trying to avoid that. So I would always do the transfer tax. In my career, have I ever taken a quick claim deed? Yeah. There was a guy that called me. We were at our old office way back, and I had followed up with this guy as a FSBO. Again, good story for you guys to hear. Several times, because he said, just wait, I'm trying to get custody of my grandson, and when I do, I'm selling this thing and I'm out of here. Well, he called me one day after 9 months and said, I got custody. My truck's packed. Oh, cool. In the yacht, I'm leaving. Can you come out? And so I went out and with Sue's help, got the deed signed, notarized right there. And we, we, we owned the property. Adam backtracked and did some stuff legally, but we got the deed signed right away. I don't do that usually, but he was leaving literally cross-country and said, here's my house.
