A funding meeting agenda for the household and its successors

A signed estate plan names people who were not in the room when it was signed: a successor trustee in the trust, agents under the powers of attorney, a guardian for minor children in the will, the beneficiaries. The trust itself holds only what has been moved into it. A funding meeting deals with both. The household works through its asset list with the advisor coordinating, and, if the clients choose, the people the documents name learn where the records are kept and whom to call.

The agenda

The meeting takes about an hour, in person or by video, and runs in the order below. The advisor leads the logistics; the household answers every question about its own wishes and property, and legal questions are recorded for counsel. Items the clients have not authorized for the named people are covered with the clients alone, before the others join.

• The people, as the documents name them. Trustee and successor trustees, the agents under the financial and health care powers of attorney, the executor, any guardian nomination in the will. Confirm names and contact details. Record which of those people have been asked to serve and which have not.
• The asset list. For each asset, the action the household chose (retitle, transfer on death, change a beneficiary, leave as is), the institution, who does the next step, and what the confirmation will look like. Retirement accounts stay in the owner’s name and pass by designation. Why revocable trusts go unfunded after signing covers what each institution needs.
• Where the signed records are. Who holds the originals, what is stored in the household’s vault, and whom an authorized person should contact when the time comes.
• Incapacity and death, taken separately. The household says what it intends in each case. Counsel confirms who acts and what each document requires first.
• The follow-up. An owner and a date on every open request, and the date of the next check-in.

The meeting does not include investment discussion, a review of performance, or any offer to the people who are not clients. Those belong in other meetings.

Who is in the room, and who decides

The clients decide whom to include and what each person hears. A successor trustee can be told where the documents are without being shown account balances. An adult child can be introduced without being told what they will inherit. The advisor asks the household for that list before the meeting and records the answer, because the firm’s privacy obligations run to the client. For an adviser registered with the SEC, Regulation S-P’s opt-out requirements do not apply to a disclosure made “with the consent or at the direction of the consumer, provided that the consumer has not revoked the consent or direction” (17 CFR 248.15(a)(1)); the initial privacy notice still applies, as do the firm’s own procedures. Regulation S-P does not cover state-registered advisers, who should confirm with compliance which privacy rules apply to them.

The named people have no authority yet. Under the Uniform Trust Code, while a trust is revocable and the settlor has capacity, the rights of the beneficiaries are subject to the settlor’s control and “the duties of the trustee are owed exclusively to, the settlor” (section 603(a)), and a successor trustee acts only when the trust’s terms make them trustee. A guardian a parent names in a will or other signed writing becomes effective only at the parent’s death, an adjudication of incapacity, or a physician’s written determination that the parent can no longer care for the child, and the guardian “becomes eligible to act upon the filing of an acceptance of appointment,” due within 30 days after that (Uniform Probate Code section 5-202(c) and (d)). States enact their own versions of both codes. What the clients may want to know at this meeting is whether the people they named know it and are willing, a conversation the successor trustee who was never asked covers.

The trusted contact question

The roles in the estate plan are one list. The firm’s own account records hold another, and the funding meeting is a natural time to review the trusted contact on file. A broker-dealer must make reasonable efforts to obtain from each retail customer the “name of and contact information for a trusted contact person age 18 or older who may be contacted about the customer’s account” (FINRA Rule 4512(a)(1)(F)), and must tell the customer in writing what the firm may discuss with that person: possible financial exploitation, the customer’s current contact information or health status, and the identity of any legal guardian, executor, trustee, or holder of a power of attorney. Under FINRA Rule 2165, a firm that places a temporary hold on a disbursement because it reasonably believes an older or impaired customer has been, is being, or will be exploited must notify the trusted contact within two business days, unless that person is unavailable or is the suspected exploiter.

FINRA’s rules bind broker-dealers. For investment advisers, the model act NASAA adopted in 2016 applies where a state has enacted it, and states have enacted it differently. In the model’s terms, a qualified individual at a broker-dealer or investment adviser who reasonably believes exploitation may have occurred may “notify any third party previously designated by the eligible adult,” the firm may delay a disbursement for up to fifteen business days, or twenty-five at a regulator’s request, while it reviews, and the firm must promptly report to Adult Protective Services and the securities regulator. The point for the meeting is the same under either regime: the person the household would want called in that situation should be on file with the firm, and it need not be the successor trustee.

The first ninety days

The days are suggestions. A request stays open until confirmation is on file, however long that takes, and a deed is done when it is recorded. The close-out at day 90 goes to the household in writing and becomes the first entry for the next annual review.

When the family calls

Years later a successor trustee or an adult child calls the firm. If the meeting happened, they know the advisor’s name, where the records are, and that the advisor is not the one who decides what the documents mean. The firm follows its own and the custodian’s documentation requirements before it shares anything or takes an instruction, and refers questions about whether someone’s authority has begun to counsel. Then the advisor gathers the records, coordinates with counsel and the tax advisor, and keeps the list of open items. What happens when a trust is unfunded at death covers the routes the assets take.

Whether the beneficiaries become clients is a separate conversation, on their timing. Some will ask. Some have an advisor. The firm explains its service and its fees when invited, and hands off cleanly when someone chooses elsewhere. Retained assets after a transition are worth recording, transition by transition.

How Bancroft handles it

The plan summary generated for a household lists the people the documents name by role, including the trustee and successor trustee, the executor and successor executor, the financial agent, and the health care agent, alongside the trust’s funding status. The funding guide that accompanies it is a checklist by asset type, listing the household’s own institutions and what is already marked funded. Both carry the firm’s name on the Firm plan.

Each funding request is a task with its institution and the action, and a status that is tracked on the task and marked complete when the household uploads confirmation for a linked letter; a household can also ask its advisor to review a task from inside the portal. Funding letters move from approved to mailed to confirmed, with the household’s uploaded proof stored in its Digital Safe. In the Digital Safe the household records where each signed original is kept, names beneficiaries with their email and relationship, and can designate a digital executor who is notified if the household stops answering its periodic check-ins. After a death or incapacity, a person requests access through a form with supporting documentation, the firm or Bancroft reviews the request, and approval opens a read-only view for 45 days.

The funding meeting playbook has the agenda and sample messages, and the successor trustee guide is written for the person the trust names. To see the plan summary and the funding task list for a sample household, book a demo.