08/03/2026
Trusts: Sorting Fact From Internet Fiction
Search "living trust" and you'll get a lot of confident answers. Many of them are wrong — and some are wrong in ways that cost Maryland families real money.
Here are the basics.
1. "My will keeps my family out of probate." It doesn't. A will is the document that goes through probate. A properly drafted and funded revocable living trust can avoid probate.
2. "A trust eliminates taxes." Not by itself. Assets in a revocable trust remain part of your taxable estate. Maryland imposes both an estate tax and an inheritance tax, and planning around them takes more than a downloaded form.
3. "A revocable trust protects my assets from creditors and nursing home costs." No. If you can revoke it, you still control it — and so can your creditors reach it. Different tools handle that job, and the timing rules are unforgiving.
4. "I signed it, so I'm finished." Signing is only half the work. A trust that isn't funded — meaning your accounts, deeds, and titles are actually transferred into it — accomplishes nothing.
5. "A trust isn't for people like me." Trusts aren't only for the wealthy. They're for anyone with a home, a blended family, a minor child, a beneficiary with special needs, or property in more than one state.
Maryland has its own Trust Act and its own rules on ex*****on, trustee duties, and how property passes. A generic online template doesn't know that.
If you'd like to know whether a trust actually fits your situation, call us. We'll give you a straight answer — even if that answer is "you don't need one."
📞 The Cadogan Firm, LLC | Towson & Ocean City
