Certification of Trust in Illinois: Contents, Signing, and Statute

A certification of trust in Illinois is a short, signed document a trustee gives to a bank, title company, or other third party to prove the trust exists and that the trustee has authority to act for it, without handing over the full trust instrument. Illinois law at 760 ILCS 3/1013 lists exactly what has to go in it, and it protects both the trustee’s privacy and the third party who relies on it.

What Must Be in the Certification

The Illinois Trust Code requires eight specific items:

A statement that the trust exists, and the date the trust instrument was signed.
The name of the settlor (the person who created the trust).
The name and address of each currently serving trustee.
A description of the trustee’s powers relevant to the transaction, such as buying or selling property, opening accounts, or borrowing.
Whether the trust is revocable or irrevocable, and who holds the power to revoke or amend it.
If there are co-trustees, how many of them must sign off to bind the trust.
The trust’s taxpayer identification number.
The manner in which the trust takes title to property.

The certification also has to include a statement that the trust has not been revoked, modified, or amended in any way that would make the information in the certification inaccurate.¹ That current-as-of-today statement is what gives the recipient confidence they aren’t looking at a stale snapshot.

One thing the certification specifically does not have to contain is the dispositive terms of the trust: the provisions describing who inherits what and when. Keeping those out is the whole reason certifications exist.¹

Who Signs It and Does It Need a Notary

At least one currently acting trustee must sign or otherwise authenticate the certification. When there are co-trustees, not all of them have to sign; the certification itself should say how many are required to act.¹

Notarization is not automatically required. The statute says a third party “may require” the certification be acknowledged, which in practice means acknowledged before a notary. Banks and title companies usually insist on it, so getting the certification notarized from the start saves a return trip.

What the Recipient Can and Can’t Ask For Next

A recipient of a certification can ask the trustee for excerpts from the actual trust instrument, but only excerpts that show who the trustee is and what powers the trustee has for the specific transaction. Nothing in the law entitles them to see the whole document.¹

If a third party demands the full trust instrument on top of a valid certification and the excerpts they’re entitled to, they take a real risk. A court can award damages against a party that made the demand without acting in good faith. The statute treats three situations as automatically good faith: the demand is needed to comply with federal, state, or local law; the person is acting in a fiduciary capacity with respect to the trust; or the request comes from the Illinois Attorney General’s Charitable Trust Bureau.¹ Outside those categories, insisting on the whole document is a gamble.

Why Third Parties Are Willing to Rely on It

The certification comes with a legal shield that makes banks and title companies comfortable accepting it. Anyone who acts on a certification without actual knowledge that a statement in it is wrong has no liability for doing so, and can assume the facts in it are true without investigating the trust.¹

Even if a third party happens to have a copy of part or all of the trust instrument sitting in a file from an earlier transaction, that alone does not count as knowledge of the trust’s terms for liability purposes. The statute blocks that inference.¹

The protection extends to the deal itself. A person who enters a transaction in good faith based on a certification can enforce it against the trust property as if the certification were correct.¹ If a trustee overstates their powers, the third party’s transaction still holds; a beneficiary who is harmed has to look to the trustee personally, not undo the deal.

Certification of Trust vs. Memorandum of Trust

These get confused, and they aren’t interchangeable. A certification of trust is for financial institutions, brokerages, and similar counterparties who need to verify a trustee’s authority before opening an account or processing a transaction. It isn’t recorded anywhere.

A memorandum of trust is used when real estate goes into or out of a trust. Because property transfers involve public records, the memorandum is recorded with the county recorder’s office where the property sits. It also summarizes the trust without revealing the dispositive terms, but its audience is the recorder and anyone searching title. Opening a bank account calls for a certification. Deeding a house into the trust calls for a memorandum. A trust selling real property may need both.

Which Illinois Statute Applies to Your Trust

Illinois actually has two statutes covering certifications. The older Illinois Trusts and Trustees Act contains the provision at 760 ILCS 5/8.5.² The newer Illinois Trust Code, effective January 1, 2020, covers the same ground at 760 ILCS 3/1013.¹

The two provisions are nearly identical in their requirements and protections. The Illinois Trust Code generally applies to trusts that became irrevocable after its effective date, though its procedural provisions, including trust certification, apply broadly. For most trustees dealing with certifications today, 760 ILCS 3/1013 is the governing statute. If your trust was created and became irrevocable well before 2020, the older Trusts and Trustees Act may still apply in some respects, and an attorney familiar with your trust’s history can confirm which law controls.

Either way, the practical checklist is the same: include the eight required items, add the statement that nothing has changed to make the certification inaccurate, get a currently acting trustee’s signature, keep the dispositive terms out, and be ready to have it notarized when the bank or title company asks.

1
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 760 ILCS 3/1013 – Certification of Trust
2
Illinois General Assembly. Illinois Code 760 ILCS 5/8.5 – Certification of Trust