Recalde Law Firm, P.A. is a Florida law firm with an office in Miami, Florida. We advise on United States law only. We do not practice Mexican law, and we do not give Mexican tax or succession advice. We do not practice the law of any other country. Formation of a non-U.S. entity, and the local law of that jurisdiction, are matters for local counsel. We handle the U.S. architecture: classification, the documents a U.S. custodian and a U.S. court will read, and coordination with the family's tax adviser.
A trust that has been signed and has not received property is a document. The accounts, the brokerage positions, and the real estate are still owned by the person whose name is on them. Creditors, a probate court, and the estate-tax return will follow the title. Families sometimes treat the signing as the end of the work. It is the point at which the funding should be listed, asset by asset, with the tax adviser on the timing.
The practice page is Foreign Trusts. The account the trustee will have to open, or retitle, is opening a U.S. account for a foreign trust or holding entity. The Spanish note is fondeo de un foreign trust.
What is still in a personal name
Walk the balance sheet against the title, not against the narrative. A custody account in the settlor's name is the settlor's. A Florida condominium deeded to the settlor is the settlor's, and if the settlor dies that way it is a Florida probate asset. Membership interests, private-fund subscriptions, and operating companies are funded by an assignment or a transfer the issuer will recognize on its register. A side letter that "acknowledges the trust" does not move title if the register does not change.
A structure we often see for families from Mexico, Chile, or Ecuador is a foreign trust signed with a schedule of assets that still sit in personal-name accounts in Miami or New York, plus a residence that was never deeded. Families from Brazil, Colombia, or Argentina arrive with the same gap and a different set of home-country documents. The U.S. funding documents do not depend on those home-country rules. Home-country tax and succession stay with counsel there.
An assignment and a deed are not the same instrument
Intangibles — a brokerage account, a partnership interest, shares — are typically funded by an assignment, a direction to the custodian, and the custodian's own transfer form. Real property is funded by a deed in the form the recording office will accept, with the trustee named as grantee in the capacity the trust requires. Using an assignment for a condominium, or a deed for a brokerage account, produces a document nobody can record or book. If the property is a Florida homestead and the owner is married, the spouse's joinder belongs on the deed. That limit is discussed in Florida homestead and transfers into a trust.
The custodian will know the trustee
Retitling is an account-opening event. The institution will KYC the trustee, and it will look through to the settlor, the protector, and the people with a present interest. A trustee the bank will not accept cannot receive the account, which means the trust remains unfunded no matter what the deed says. Who may instruct after the transfer has to be a person the instrument authorizes. See opening a U.S. brokerage account and protectors and reserved powers.
Timing sits with the tax adviser
A transfer to a foreign trust can be a reporting event, a gift, or a recognition event, depending on who the transferor is and how the trust is classified. A non-U.S. settlor funding an FGT is not the same pattern as a U.S. person transferring property into a foreign trust. The second pattern is sections 679 and 684. We do not pick the date. The tax adviser does, after the classification is written down. The firm assigns responsibility for the classification. The tax adviser prepares the returns.
There is no client story on this page. The work is a schedule: each asset, the instrument that moves it, the institution that must accept the transferee, and the tax adviser's date. Until that schedule is done, the trust is signed and the property is where it was.