You know something I see fairly regularly in my practice is confusion about how people think they own assets versus how the assets are actually owned, i.e., whose name is on the title--whether that be manifested as a property deed, stock certificate, bank statement, etc. This confusion usually occurs when someone owns property (or thinks they own property) with someone else.
For example, husband and wife purchase a home together, and they think that they both own it. But if you look at the deed for the home, it only has husband's name on it. Or three business partners purchase a vehicle for company business, but instead of the company's name on the title, it has the partner's name on it who will be driving the vehicle.
What difference does it make? In normal day-to-day activities, it probably makes little noticeable difference. However, when certain events occur (such as death, disability, divorce, lawsuit, dissolution of business, sale or gifting of an asset) whose name was on the title can make a big difference in terms of time and money.
The other day, my wife went over to her grandparents' home to help them make sure their trust was properly "funded." After her visit, she shared with me her grandparents' confusion about the funding process because they thought "everything was all taken care of" when they signed their trust document. This is such a common misunderstanding that I thought the topic of funding was worth revisiting today.
lt deserved a thoughtful answer. This client had recently come across an article written by an attorney who claimed that naming your Revocable Living Trust (a very common estate planning tool) with your own family name could put your family’s privacy in grave danger. The article’s author claimed that such a practice “completely destroys the entire privacy prong of trust benefits.” [emphasis mine]. This statement is misleading for at least two reasons:
The Deseret News ran 
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