I was recently asked how to prevent someone from fraudulently changing the terms of a trust by removing pages and inserting changes. The answer is, the wider the distribution of the trust’s contents, the more difficult it is to commit fraud. Distributing multiple copies of the trust instrument will eliminate the possibility of the one and only copy being changed to meet some fraudulent goal. You can also record your living trust with the county recorder’s office. Additionally, make sure that people who have copies of your trust document are updated as to any changes you might make, and give them the name and contact information of the attorney who created your trust so if fraudulent versions do appear, the attorney can be called upon to produce a copy of the original document from the attorney’s records.
