Funding a Trust with Gold,
Silver & Precious Metals

Richard Keyt (Rick, the father at 480-664-7478) and his son, former CPA Richard C. Keyt (Ricky at 480-664-7472), are Arizona estate planning attorneys with 294 5-star Google reviews and 407 5-star Google, Facebook & Birdeye reviews. They want to prepare a custom estate plan for Arizona residents that protects their most valuable assets – their loved ones. Call, email, or book a free office, phone or Zoom video meeting.

We've written a free library of in-depth articles covering virtually every aspect of Arizona wills, trusts & estate planning. See Arizona Estate Planning Guide: Wills, Trusts & Probate Articles at:

👉 keytlaw.com/arizona-wills-trusts-articles

How to Protect Your Gold, Silver &
Precious Metals So They Go to
the Right People

Gold and silver have outlasted empires. For thousands of years, people have trusted precious metals to hold their value when paper currencies failed, markets crashed, and governments came and went. If you own gold coins, silver bullion, numismatic coins, platinum bars, or similar physical assets, you already understand why those assets matter.

But here is a problem most precious metals owners never think about until it is too late: physical precious metals are among the most estate-planning-vulnerable assets you can own.

Unlike your house — which has a deed — or your bank account — which has your name on it — a gold coin has no name on it. A silver bar does not know who owns it. Whoever has physical possession of your metals effectively has the metals. And if you die without a proper estate plan, there is a real chance your precious metals will:

never be found by your family,
be found but stuck in Arizona's expensive and slow probate process,
go to the wrong person — or no specific person at all under Arizona's default inheritance laws, or
be inherited by the right person but immediately exposed to that person's creditors, lawsuits, or a divorcing spouse.

I am Richard Keyt. I have been an Arizona estate planning attorney since 1979, and I have helped more than 1,000 Arizona families create estate plans that protect everything they have worked for — including their gold, silver, and other physical assets. In this article I am going to walk you through exactly how precious metals create unique estate planning challenges, and what you can do right now to make sure those assets go to exactly the people you choose.

What Types of Physical Assets Are We Talking About?

When I use the term “precious metals and similar physical assets,” I mean any tangible, high-value item that has no traditional paper title or registration document. That includes:

Gold bullion — bars, ingots, rounds
Gold coins — American Gold Eagles, Canadian Maple Leafs, Krugerrands, South African Krugerrands, pre-1933 U.S. gold coins
Silver bullion — bars, rounds, 90% “junk silver” bags (pre-1965 U.S. dimes, quarters, half dollars)
Silver coins — American Silver Eagles, Morgan dollars, Peace dollars, other collectible silver coinage
Platinum and palladium — bars and coins
Numismatic coins — rare, collectible, or graded coins with values exceeding their melt value
Precious gemstones — loose diamonds, rubies, emeralds, and other investment-grade gems
High-value jewelry — estate jewelry, antique jewelry, or items with significant intrinsic metal or gem value

All of these assets share the same critical characteristic for estate planning purposes: there is no central registry, no deed, and no title document. Ownership is determined by possession and documentation — which means estate planning matters even more for these assets than it does for your house or your retirement account.

What Happens to Your Precious Metals If You Die Without a Plan?

Problem #1: Your Family May Not Know the Assets Exist

Many precious metals owners keep their holdings private. That is a smart security practice while you are alive. But it creates a serious problem when you die. If your family does not know your gold and silver exist, or does not know where to find it, those assets disappear. They sit in a forgotten safe, a buried container, a bank safe deposit box nobody has the key to, or a storage unit whose rental fees eventually go unpaid. The assets are real. They have real value. But from your family's perspective, they simply do not exist.

Problem #2: A Will Alone Does NOT Avoid Probate

Many people assume that having a will solves the inheritance problem. It does not — at least not cleanly. A will is a set of instructions to a court. For a will to take effect, your estate must go through Arizona's probate process, which is supervised by the Maricopa County Superior Court (or the county court where you lived).

Arizona probate has some real drawbacks:

It is public. Everything in a probate proceeding — the inventory of your assets, the values, who inherits what — becomes a public court record. Anyone can look it up. If your gold and silver holdings are listed in a probate inventory, that information is accessible to strangers.
It takes time. Even a straightforward Arizona probate typically takes six months to a year or more to complete. Your family cannot access the assets until the court process closes.
It costs money. Attorney fees, court filing fees, personal representative fees, appraisal costs — they all eat into the estate your loved ones receive. We charge $5,000 for a simple unconstested probate.
It requires supervision. The personal representative has to account to the court for every asset, including your precious metals. That means appraisals, documentation, and sometimes court approval for decisions.

The right tool to avoid probate entirely — including for your precious metals — is a revocable living trust.

Problem #3: Joint Tenancy Does Not Work Well for Physical Assets

Some people try to solve the inheritance problem by adding a spouse or adult child as a “joint tenant” on their assets. Joint tenancy works reasonably well for real estate (though even that has complications). It does not work at all for physical precious metals. You cannot put your name and your son's name “on” a gold coin the way you can put two names on a deed. Joint tenancy is simply not a valid ownership form for physical personal property like bullion and coins.

Problem #4: Arizona's Default Inheritance Laws May Surprise You

If you die without a will or a trust — what Arizona law calls dying “intestate” — the state decides who inherits your assets. Arizona's intestate succession law has a specific formula based on your family relationships. Your gold and silver will be divided according to that formula, whether you would have wanted it that way or not. If you are not married and have no children, your assets may pass to relatives you barely know. If you have children from a prior marriage, the outcome can be complicated and unexpected.

The Right Solution: A Revocable Living Trust

A revocable living trust is the cornerstone of a sound Arizona estate plan — and it is especially well-suited to protecting physical precious metals.

Here is how it works. You create a trust agreement that names you as the initial trustee (so you remain in complete control of your assets during your lifetime) and names a successor trustee who takes over if you become incapacitated or when you die. The trust also names your beneficiaries — the people who inherit your assets when you are gone.

Once the trust is created, you transfer ownership of your assets into the trust. For real estate, that means signing a new deed. For bank accounts, it means re-titling the accounts. For precious metals and other physical personal property with no title document, it means executing a written assignment of personal property — a document that clearly identifies your metals and assigns ownership to the trust.

The result is powerful: when you die, your assets — including your gold and silver — are already owned by the trust. There is nothing for a probate court to supervise. Your successor trustee distributes the assets directly to your beneficiaries according to the trust's instructions, privately, efficiently, and without court involvement.

Why a Revocable Living Trust Is Better Than a Will for Precious Metals

No probate. Your precious metals pass to your beneficiaries without court involvement, delay, or public exposure of your holdings.
Privacy. Unlike a probate inventory, the contents of a trust are private. Nobody outside your family and advisors needs to know what you owned or who received it.
Speed. Your successor trustee can act immediately after your death. No waiting months for a court to close an estate.
Incapacity protection. If you become unable to manage your affairs due to illness or injury, your successor trustee can step in and manage your assets — including your metals — without a court-ordered guardianship or conservatorship.
Flexibility. You can change the trust, change your beneficiaries, add or remove assets, and revoke the trust entirely at any time while you are alive and competent. You are in complete control.
Specific instructions. Your trust can give your trustee very specific guidance about your precious metals — how to store them, how to value them, who gets which specific items, and in what timeframe.

The Critical Step Most Precious Metals Owners Skip: Documentation

Creating a trust is necessary. But for precious metals, documentation is just as important. Your successor trustee — the person who takes over when you die — needs to know what you have, where it is, and how to access it. Without that information, even a perfectly drafted trust cannot help much.

I strongly recommend that every precious metals owner create and maintain a detailed precious metals inventory and a letter of instruction to go along with the trust.

Your Precious Metals Inventory Should Include:

Description of each item: type of metal, form (coin, bar, round), weight, denomination if applicable, mint or manufacturer, year
Quantity of each type
Approximate value at the time you last updated the inventory (note the date)
Where each item is stored (home safe, bank safe deposit box, private vault, with a dealer, etc.)
Access information: safe combination, location of keys, name and contact information for the institution where stored
Purchase documentation if available (receipts, certificates of authenticity, PCGS/NGC grading certificates for numismatic coins)

Your Letter of Instruction Should Tell Your Successor Trustee:

That precious metals are part of the estate and where to find the inventory
How to access the safe, safe deposit box, or storage location
The name of any dealer or appraiser you trust to value the collection
Whether any specific items hold particular sentimental value and should go to specific people
Whether you want the metals liquidated and the cash distributed, or distributed in-kind to the beneficiaries
Any handling instructions for rare or graded numismatic coins (do not clean them — cleaning destroys value)

Keep your inventory and letter of instruction in a secure but accessible location — ideally in your trust binder, with copies held by your successor trustee. Update the inventory every time you add or sell metals.

Important security note: Do not store your precious metals inventory in the same location as your metals. If someone finds the metals, they do not need to also find a roadmap to your collection. Store the inventory and trust documents separately.

Storage Considerations and How They Interact with Estate Planning

Where you store your precious metals has real implications for your estate plan. Here is what you need to know about the most common options:

Home Safe

A quality home safe bolted to the floor or wall is a legitimate storage option for many people. From an estate planning standpoint, the main issues are: (1) your successor trustee needs to know the combination or where the key is stored, and (2) your homeowner's insurance may limit coverage for precious metals kept at home — check your policy and consider a rider for high-value collections. The assignment of personal property transfers ownership of metals kept in a home safe to your trust just as effectively as any other location.

Bank Safe Deposit Box

Safe deposit boxes offer institutional security, but they create a significant estate planning complication: when you die, the bank typically restricts access to the box until the proper legal authority has been established. If your estate goes through probate, this means the executor must be appointed by the court before accessing the box. If you have a trust, your successor trustee needs to be listed on the box or have a formal process to gain access. I recommend that you either title the safe deposit box in the name of your trust, or at minimum ensure your successor trustee is authorized to access the box.

Private Vault or Depository

Third-party vaults and precious metals depositories (such as Brinks, Delaware Depository, or similar facilities) typically issue a storage agreement and account documentation. These facilities often allow you to title the account in the name of your trust. If you store metals this way, make sure the account is properly titled in your trust's name and that your successor trustee has account access credentials.

Precious Metals IRA

Some people hold physical gold and silver through a self-directed Individual Retirement Account (IRA). These are a different estate planning situation entirely — the metals are held by a custodian under IRS rules, and the IRA itself (not your trust) is the legal owner. The inheritance of an IRA is governed by beneficiary designations, not your trust. Make sure your IRA beneficiary designations are current and consistent with your overall estate plan. Ricky's background as a CPA makes him particularly well-suited to help you think through the tax dimensions of precious metals IRAs.

Taking It One Step Further: Protecting What Your Children Inherit

A revocable living trust ensures your precious metals pass to the people you choose, quickly and without probate. But what happens to those metals after your children or other beneficiaries receive them?

If your son inherits $200,000 worth of gold and silver and then faces a lawsuit, a bankruptcy, or a divorce, those assets are potentially exposed to his creditors or his soon-to-be-ex-spouse. He received the inheritance outright — it is now his, and his problems can reach it.

There is a solution: a Beneficiary-Controlled Asset-Protected Trust, or BCAPT.

A BCAPT is a special irrevocable trust — built as an optional add-on to your estate plan — that holds the assets your beneficiary inherits in a protected structure. The beneficiary can be the trustee of his or her own BCAPT, meaning they have meaningful control over the assets. But because the assets are held in trust rather than owned outright, creditors generally cannot reach them.

For parents who own significant quantities of gold and silver — particularly numismatic collections with substantial value — a BCAPT for each child beneficiary can provide an important additional layer of protection. The metals pass from your revocable trust into the child's BCAPT, where they are shielded from the kinds of financial events that none of us can fully predict.

If your child ever does face a judgment creditor, a bankruptcy trustee, or a divorce attorney trying to claim those inherited metals, the BCAPT gives your child a real defense that outright inheritance simply does not provide.

We prepare Beneficiary Controlled Asset Protected trusts that protect your loved ones from their creditors, ex-spouses and bankruptcy. See our article called How to Protect Your Heirs'
Inheritance from Creditors.

Common Estate Planning Mistakes Precious Metals Owners Make

Mistake #1: Assuming the Will Handles It

A will says who gets your gold and silver. It does not keep them out of probate. For assets that have no title document, keeping the estate out of probate — which is what a trust accomplishes — is even more important than for titled assets.

Mistake #2: Telling Nobody Where the Metals Are

Secrecy is a virtue while you are alive. It becomes a serious problem when you die. Your successor trustee cannot do their job if they do not know the assets exist or where to find them. Document it. Tell your successor trustee — in your letter of instruction, in a sealed envelope, somewhere — what you have and where it is.

Mistake #3: Never Updating the Inventory

If you actively buy and sell precious metals, your inventory changes. A trust assignment that covered your collection three years ago may not accurately reflect what you own today. Keep your inventory current and update your assignment of personal property when you make significant additions.

Mistake #4: Forgetting About the Safe Deposit Box Complication

If you use a bank safe deposit box, make sure your successor trustee has a clear legal path to access it. The simplest solution is to title the box in the name of your trust.

Mistake #5: Treating All Precious Metals the Same

A bag of 90% silver quarters is different from a PCGS MS-65 graded 1881-S Morgan dollar. Numismatic coins may need professional appraisal before distribution. Some pieces may have sentimental as well as monetary value. Your trust and letter of instruction should account for these distinctions.

Mistake #6: Creating a Trust but Never Funding It

An unfunded trust is a trust with nothing in it — and it does nothing. For your trust to protect your precious metals, the metals must actually be transferred into the trust through a properly executed assignment of personal property. Creating the trust document is step one. Funding the trust is the equally important step two.

A Few Arizona-Specific Points

Arizona is a community property state. If you are married, the gold and silver you acquired during your marriage is generally community property — meaning you and your spouse each own an undivided one-half interest. This has implications for how you transfer metals into your trust and how they pass at death. A properly drafted community property trust can keep the favorable step-up in tax basis for community property assets, which can matter significantly if you have appreciated precious metals.

Arizona also has its own set of probate rules under the Arizona Probate Code. Informal probate is available for many estates, but it still takes time, still creates a public record, and still involves attorney and court fees. The best way to deal with Arizona probate is to avoid it entirely through a properly funded revocable living trust.

Bottom Line: Your Gold and Silver Deserve a Real Plan

You acquired your precious metals because you understood that real, tangible value needs to be preserved and protected. The same thinking applies to your estate plan. A few hundred dollars of gold bullion can survive for a thousand years. Without a proper plan, it can disappear from your family in a matter of months — absorbed by probate costs, lost because nobody knew where to look, or ending up in the hands of someone you never intended.

The solution is not complicated, but it does need to be done correctly:

Create a revocable living trust that names the right beneficiaries and gives your successor trustee clear authority and instructions.
Fund the trust properly by executing an assignment of personal property that covers your precious metals.
Document your holdings — a detailed inventory with storage locations and access information.
Consider a BCAPT if you want to protect what your children or other beneficiaries receive from their future creditors or a divorce.
Update your plan when your life or your holdings change significantly.

My son Ricky and I have been helping Arizona families protect what matters most since 1979. We offer flat-fee estate plans so you know exactly what you will pay before we begin. Our estate plans are designed to keep your family out of probate court and to make sure your assets — all of them, including your gold and silver — go to exactly the people you choose.

If you are ready to put a real plan in place, schedule a free office, phone or Zoom video meeting at keytlaw.com/calendar. No pressure. No obligation. Just straight answers about what you need and how we can help.

Frequently Asked Questions About Precious Metals and Estate Planning

Can I leave my gold and silver to my family in my will?

Yes, but a will alone forces your family through Arizona's probate process — a court-supervised proceeding that is slow, expensive, and public. A revocable living trust lets your gold and silver pass directly to your chosen beneficiaries without probate.

How do I put gold and silver into a revocable living trust?

Unlike real estate or bank accounts, physical precious metals have no title document. You transfer them to your trust by executing a written assignment of personal property — a document that clearly identifies your assets and names the trust as the owner. You should store a copy of the assignment with your trust binder and note the location of the metals in your letter of instruction.

What happens to my gold and silver if I die without a will or trust in Arizona?

Your assets pass under Arizona's intestate succession laws — meaning the state decides who inherits, in what proportions, and on what timeline. The process goes through probate court and your wishes play no role. If no family can be located, the assets could eventually escheat (pass) to the state.

The State of Arizona has a law that specifies who inherits the assets of an Arizona resident who dies without a will or a trust. This law may cause your assets to be inherited by the wrong person or people if you don't have a will or a trust. To learn who will inherit your assets if you die without a will or a trust see my article called “Who Inherits Your Property If You Die without a Will or a Trust” and take my short online quiz called “Who Inherits Your Property.” If the wrong person or people would inherit your assets, you need to hire us to prepare a will or a trust that leaves your assets to the person or people you want to inherit the assets, not to the people Arizona gives your property to.

Can I protect the gold and silver my children inherit from their creditors or a divorce?

Yes. A Beneficiary-Controlled Asset-Protected Trust (BCAPT) — a special irrevocable trust built into your estate plan — can hold your child's inherited precious metals in a structure that protects those assets from creditors, lawsuits, and a divorcing spouse, while still allowing your child to use and benefit from the assets.

Do I need to list every single coin in my assignment of personal property?

Not necessarily. A well-drafted assignment of personal property can use broad language that covers all precious metals you own without requiring an item-by-item list in the legal document itself. However, you should maintain a detailed inventory separately — both for your trustee's benefit and to ensure accurate valuation of the estate.

What if my gold or silver is in a precious metals IRA?

Precious metals held in an IRA are owned by the IRA, not by you directly. They pass by beneficiary designation, not through your trust. Make sure your IRA beneficiary designations are current and aligned with your overall estate plan. If you also own physical metals outside the IRA, those are handled separately through your trust's assignment of personal property.

How much does a KEYTLaw Estate Plan Cost?

We charge a flat fee for estate plans, so you know exactly what you will pay before we begin. The fee depends on whether the plan is for one person or a married couple, and whether you add optional protections like BCAPTs. Schedule a free office, phone or Zoom video meeting and we will give you a specific quote based on your situation.

About the Authors

Richard Keyt (Rick) is an Arizona estate planning and LLC attorney at KEYTLaw, LLC in Scottsdale, Arizona. He has practiced Arizona law since 1979 and has completed more than 1,000 Arizona estate plans. His son and law partner, Richard C. Keyt (Ricky), is an attorney and a former CPA. Together they serve clients throughout Scottsdale, Paradise Valley, Phoenix, Mesa, Tempe, Gilbert, Glendale, Peoria, Surprise, Chandler, and Queen Creek. See their website at https://www.keytlaw.com and the fee and the 36 documents & services in their estate plan.

Disclaimer: We are Arizona attorneys, but not your attorney. This information is for educational purposes only and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Arizona laws are unique; always consult a local professional regarding your specific situation.

See the Contents of Our Estate Plan

To protect your most valuable assets—your loved ones— read our article that describes the 36 documents and services you will get if you hire us to prepare your comprehensive estate plan with a revocable living trust or watch our video about the documents and services.

Questions? Book a free meeting or call or email one of our Arizona estate planning attorneys. We don't charge to talk to people.

Call or email Richard Keyt, the father

Direct phone: 480-664-7478

Email: [email protected]

Call or email Richard C. Keyt, the son

Direct phone: 480-664-7472