Pour-Over Provision

A revocable living trust only governs assets that are actually titled in the trust's name during life. Funding gaps happen anyway. A new bank account gets opened. A vehicle gets retitled. The pour-over provision in the accompanying will catches those stray assets and sends them into the trust at death.

The trust then administers them under its own terms — the same trustee, the same distributions, the same protections. The will becomes a backstop, not the primary distribution document.

Families include a pour-over provision because perfect funding is rare. Even disciplined clients accumulate untitled assets over time. The pour-over ensures the trust still gets the final say even when the funding paperwork falls behind.

Arizona explicitly authorizes pour-over devises to existing or contemporaneously executed trusts under ARS § 14-2511. The trust does not need to be funded during life for the pour-over to be valid, but assets that pass through the pour-over will generally still require probate to clear title before the trustee can administer them.

Documents that include a pour-over provision typically contain language along these lines: "I give the residue of my estate to the then-acting trustee of the [Name] Revocable Living Trust, dated [date], to be held and administered as part of that trust under its terms as they exist at my death." Descriptive, not a template.

• Pour-over to amended trust. The will references the trust "as amended," so later restatements still control.
• Pour-over to a testamentary trust if the inter vivos trust fails. Belt-and-suspenders pattern that creates a backup trust inside the will.
• Pour-over of specific assets only. Some bequests go directly to named beneficiaries; only the residue pours over.

The single biggest failure mode is treating the pour-over will as a substitute for funding the trust. Assets that pass through the pour-over still require probate first. The trust avoids probate only for assets already titled in its name. A second failure is referencing the trust by an outdated name or date after a restatement, which can create construction questions. A third pitfall is letting the pour-over will be the only document — a fully funded trust paired with a thin pour-over will is the goal, not the other way around.