I have a customer that wants her account set up Jane Smith Revocable Trust, Jane Smith Trustee. She also want beneficiaries listed on this account. Can this account be titled in that manner? Who takes first place, the trust or the beneficiaries?

Obviously you do not want to be in a possession of offering legal advice to your customer. Trust and beneficiary law vary by state so I would contact bank counsel to see which would take precedence.

That being said, the purpose of having a trust is to direct the successor trustee to distribute assets upon the death of a grantor. A trust is an entity and therefore does not die. Based on this fact, it does not seem appropriate to allow a beneficiary designation on this account since the trust document should stipulate what happens to the funds upon the death of the grantor. If Jane wants these funds to be distributed in a manner not consistent with the trust, then they should not be included in the trust assets (i.e. titled in her name only with a payable on death designation.)

FWIW, I agree with Brian. We do not allow beneficiaries on trust accounts.

Neither do we. All of the beneficiaries should be laid out in the trust document so that there is no conflict between that and the account information if the trust document changes.

The account is owned by the trust. The trust never dies. There is no point to designate PODs since the distribution to them will never be triggered.

JPeter,

Does your customer have a written trust agreement or is she just wanting to open a bank account and use the word "trust" in the title?