The A/B Trust in 2023 — What Do You Need to Do?

As a widow (or widower), you recently brought out your old estate planning binder to update its contents. You’re surprised to find that the trust you and your late spouse created is supposed to split into two separate trusts — and you never did any such thing. Are you in trouble? Will there be costs? OR: your spouse died several years ago, and you haven’t heard from your stepchildren since shortly after the funeral. Now you want to amend the trust you created together, but can you? What is this “A/B Trust” language in the correspondence you got from the lawyer way back when? OR: your second parent recently died, and you are trying to figure out how to handle the trust they created. When you look at the document, you see that there are supposed to be two separate trusts. What do you have to do to catch up with old requirements?