Titles and Trusts questions

[Amalia G.]

My partner and I are starting to get knee deep in some legal questions regarding our properties. 

We want to set up a trust and/or living will but need some advise before doing so.

We own 10+ properties between us. Some titles are in both our names and some titles individually.

We are a non-married couple.

We started to add the other persons name to titles where only one existed with the idea that is would make the trusts easier to set up. However our CPA recently informed us of the gift tax we didn't realized we would occur in doing so (as we are not married). 

Does anyone know a way around this, or if having the titles in only one persons name is significantly different/expensive/harder in terms of setting up trusts? 

At this point, we are thinking we need to put the titles back in only the original persons name before the tax years end to avoid these gift taxes.

We own properties in the following states: MN, TX, UT and our primary is in CA.

Appreciate any advise, I do realize the question in complicated.