Will.com / Living trust / Alaska
AK · Revocable Living Trust
Make your Alaska living trust.
Skip probate, keep your estate private, and stay in control while you're alive. Legally valid in Alaska. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Alaska living trust requirements
Special notes for Alaska
- Alaska is not a general community property state. Property of spouses is community property only to the extent provided in a community property agreement or a community property trust (Alaska Stat. §34.77.030(a)); married couples may opt in to community property treatment by transferring property to an Alaska Community Property Trust regardless of either spouse's domicile (§34.77.060(b))
- The Alaska CPT mechanism carries three requirements on the face of its statutory definition: the trust must expressly declare that some or all the property transferred is community property under AS 34.77; the trust must be SIGNED BY BOTH SPOUSES; and at least one trustee must be a qualified person whose powers include or are limited to maintaining records for the trust and preparing or arranging for the preparation of any income tax returns the trust must file (Alaska Stat. §34.77.100(a)). A qualified person is an Alaska-resident individual (true and permanent home in Alaska, no present intention of moving, intent to return), a trust company organized under AS 06.26 with its principal place of business in Alaska, or a bank organized under AS 06.05 or a national banking association organized under 12 U.S.C. 21-216d, in either case possessing and exercising trust powers and having its principal place of business in Alaska
- An Alaska Community Property Trust must contain the following verbatim statutory warning in capital letters at the beginning of the document (Alaska Stat. §34.77.100(b)): THE CONSEQUENCES OF THIS TRUST MAY BE VERY EXTENSIVE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, YOUR RIGHTS WITH RESPECT TO CREDITORS AND OTHER THIRD PARTIES, AND YOUR RIGHTS WITH YOUR SPOUSE BOTH DURING THE COURSE OF YOUR MARRIAGE AND AT THE TIME OF A DIVORCE. ACCORDINGLY, THIS AGREEMENT SHOULD ONLY BE SIGNED AFTER CAREFUL CONSIDERATION. IF YOU HAVE ANY QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS AGREEMENT, YOU SHOULD SEEK COMPETENT ADVICE.
- Community property held in an Alaska CPT is excluded from the augmented estate for elective-share purposes (Alaska Stat. §13.12.208(d))
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About your assets, trustees, and beneficiaries.
- 2
Download your trust
A complete, personalized revocable living trust, formatted for Alaska.
- 3
Sign and fund
Sign the trust. Fund it by transferring assets into its name (notarization strongly recommended if real estate is involved).
Joint or individual
Married couples can make one joint Alaska living trust that both spouses sign, in place of an individual one. The questionnaire asks which you want, and Will.com generates either.
Signing a Alaska living trust
No formal execution requirements beyond settlor signature; notarization strongly recommended when funding real property
Proving your Alaska trust without handing it over
When a bank, brokerage, title company, insurer, or transfer agent asks to see your trust, Alaska law lets your trustee give them a short certification of trust instead (Alaska Stat. §13.36.079). It states that the trust exists, who the trustee is, and what the trustee may do. It leaves out who inherits and what each person receives, so your beneficiaries stay private.
Will.com generates the Alaska Certification of Trust alongside your trust, built to the contents that section requires. Sign it in front of the same notary, at the same sitting as the trust, then give out copies of the certification rather than the trust itself.
Tenancy by the entirety
Alaska recognizes tenancy by the entirety (Real property only. Alaska Stat. §34.15.140(a) recognizes the right to hold an estate in land as tenants by the entirety, with the right of survivorship, and §34.15.140(c) confirms a spouse's right to convey to self and the other spouse in that form. Under §34.15.110(b) the tenancy is the default rather than an election: a husband and wife who acquire title in real property hold the estate as tenants by the entirety unless the conveyance or devise expressly declares otherwise or §34.77.100 (community property trust) applies, and the conveyance must recite the parties' marital status. Neither section creates an entireties interest in personal property.). It's a form of co-ownership available only to married couples. Neither spouse can convey or encumber the property acting alone, and at the first death it passes to the surviving spouse by survivorship, outside probate. Whether it also puts the property beyond the reach of a creditor of one spouse alone is a separate question the states answer differently, so confirm what the tenancy does in Alaska before relying on it as creditor protection. When you transfer such property into a revocable trust, you may lose whatever entireties protection it carries unless your trust is drafted to preserve it.
Funding Alaska real estate into the trust
To transfer Alaska real estate into your trust, you sign a new deed conveying the property from yourself to yourself as trustee, then record the deed with the Department of Natural Resources recording office serving the recording district where the property is located (Alaska records land instruments by recording district; Alaska Stat. §§40.17.010, 40.17.020). The trust does not control real estate unless the deed transfer is recorded.
Two tiers, both private
Free: nothing leaves your browser. No account, no storage. Clear your answers whenever.
Subscription ($29/year): zero-knowledge encrypted storage. We store the ciphertext; only you hold the key. Edit and update as life changes.
Ready to create your trust?
Whatever you decide today, your family won’t have to guess. Start free, or save it to your account for $29 a year.