West Virginia Code 36-1-4a – Memorandum of trust; requirements; recordation
(a) A memorandum of trust that satisfies both of the following requirements may be presented for recordation in the office of the clerk of the county commission of any county in which real property that is subject to the trust is located:
Terms Used In West Virginia Code 36-1-4a
- Attorney-in-fact: A person who, acting as an agent, is given written authorization by another person to transact business for him (her) out of court.
- Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
- Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
- Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
- real property: include lands, tenements and hereditaments, all rights thereto and interests therein, except chattel interests. See West Virginia Code 2-2-10
- Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
(1) The memorandum shall be executed by the currently acting trustee or trustees of the trust, and, if living, by the settlor or settlors, personally, or by a duly appointed attorney-in-fact or conservator of the settlor or settlors, and shall be acknowledged in the manner a deed must be acknowledged in order to be recorded.
(2) The memorandum shall contain at least the following information with respect to the trust:
(i) The existence of the trust and the date of the trust;
(ii) The names and mailing addresses of the settlor or settlors and of the currently acting trustee or trustees of the trust, the names and mailing addresses of any successor trustee or trustees, and the circumstances under which any successor trustee or trustees will assume trust powers;
(iii) The revocability or irrevocability of the trust; and
(iv) A verbatim recitation of the trust powers specified in the trust relative to the acquisition, sale, disposition, or encumbering of real property by the trustee or trustees or the conveyance or disposition of real property by the trustee or trustees and any restrictions upon those powers, or a statement that the trust powers include at least all those trust powers contained in section three, article five-a, chapter forty-four of this code as they existed at the date of the execution of the trust.
(b) A memorandum of trust may also set forth the substance or actual text of any or all of the provisions of the trust.
(c) A memorandum of trust that satisfies the provisions of this section constitutes notice only of the information contained therein.
(d) Upon the presentation of a memorandum of trust that satisfies the provisions of this section and the payment of the requisite fee, the clerk shall record the memorandum of trust with the records of deeds and list it in the grantor index under the name of the settlor or settlors and in the grantee index under the names of the then-acting trustee or trustees.
(e) Nothing herein shall be construed or deemed to require recordation of any original trust agreement or other governing instrument which establishes the trust identified in the memorandum of trust.