A Florida revocable living trust is an estate planning document, governed by Chapter 736 of the Florida Statutes, that lets you manage your property while you’re alive and direct where it goes after you die, all without court-supervised probate. You keep the right to change or cancel it at any time, so it flexes with your life. Assets you actually transfer into the trust bypass probate, stay private, and usually reach your family faster than they would through the courts.
The trust only works if it’s built and funded correctly. Signing a document is one step; retitling your house, accounts, and other property into the trust is the step people forget, and an unfunded trust protects nothing.
Who Can Create One
Florida requires the same mental capacity for a trust as it does for a will. You must be at least 18 (or an emancipated minor) and of sound mind, meaning you understand what you own and how the trust will distribute it.1Florida Senate. Florida Code 732.501 – Who May Make a Will The trust must reflect a genuine intent to create it, name at least one definite beneficiary, and give the trustee actual duties to perform.2Justia Law. Florida Code 736.0402 – Requirements for Creation
The Three Roles
Every revocable living trust involves three parties, and one person can fill more than one role. The settlor (also called the grantor) creates the trust and puts assets into it. The trustee manages those assets under the trust’s terms. Most people name themselves as both settlor and initial trustee so they keep day-to-day control over their property. Any person can serve as trustee regardless of what state they live in, unless the trust document specifically disqualifies them.3Florida Legislature. Florida Code 736.0708 – Compensation of Trustee
A successor trustee steps in when the original trustee dies, resigns, or becomes incapacitated. Choose carefully; that person eventually handles every asset in the trust. Well-drafted trusts include a mechanism for determining incapacity without going to court, often written certification from one or two physicians. Without that, your family may need a court order to prove you can no longer serve. Beneficiaries are the people or organizations who receive trust property, either during your lifetime or after your death.
What the Document Needs to Contain
Whether you draft with an attorney or start from a Florida-specific template, the same core information has to go into the document:
- Full legal names and addresses for the settlor, every trustee, every successor trustee, and every beneficiary.
- Real estate descriptions taken directly from the deed, including the legal description and county.
- Account details for the bank, brokerage, and other titled holdings you plan to transfer.
- Specific gifts, such as a particular piece of jewelry to a named person, alongside percentage or fractional shares for whatever remains.
- Incapacity provisions explaining how incapacity is determined and what the successor trustee can do during that period.
Precision matters. A vague real estate description can trigger a title dispute. A transposed digit in an account number can stall a bank transfer for weeks. Personal property such as art or collectibles needs enough identifying detail that a stranger could pick it out. Vehicles and boats need VIN or hull numbers. The tighter your descriptions, the less room there is for confusion or challenge later.
How to Sign a Revocable Trust in Florida
Florida imposes strict formalities on any revocable trust that disposes of property at death. The trust must be signed with the same formalities Florida requires for a will.4Florida Legislature. Florida Code 736.0403 – Trusts Created in Other Jurisdictions; Formalities Required for Revocable Trusts That comes down to:
- Your signature at the end of the document, or someone signing your name in your presence and at your direction.
- Two witnesses who watch you sign (or hear you acknowledge your signature) and then each sign in your presence and in the presence of the other witness.
These rules come from Florida’s will-execution statute.5Florida Legislature. Florida Code 732.502 – Execution of Wills Miss any of them and the parts of the trust that control what happens to your assets at death can be invalid.
Notarization is not strictly required, but it’s strongly recommended. A notarized trust with a self-proving affidavit means the witnesses don’t have to appear later to confirm they watched you sign if the trust is ever challenged. Florida also allows remote online notarization, where you and a Florida-based notary connect by live audio-video. That option can help if you spend part of the year outside the state.
Funding the Trust
Signing the trust is only the start. A trust that owns nothing is just paper. Every asset you want to keep out of probate has to be retitled or reassigned to the trust. This step is called funding, and it’s where most plans fall short.
Real Estate
For Florida real property, you sign a new deed (typically a quitclaim or warranty deed) transferring title from your name individually to yourself as trustee of the trust. The deed has to be recorded with the clerk of the circuit court in the county where the property sits. Recording fees run roughly $10 for the first page and $8.50 per additional page once mandatory surcharges are added. Transferring property into your own revocable trust generally does not trigger Florida’s documentary stamp tax, because no sale or exchange of consideration is involved.
Keeping the Homestead Exemption
If you move your primary residence into a revocable trust, you can keep the Florida homestead tax exemption as long as you hold a beneficial interest in the property for life and continue to use the home as your permanent residence.6Florida Attorney General. Homestead Exemption, Florida Land Trust The trust document should expressly state that you have the right to occupy the property as your primary home. Vague language here can cost you an exemption worth thousands of dollars a year.
Financial Accounts, Vehicles, and Personal Property
Banks and brokerage firms will ask for documentation before retitling accounts. Rather than handing over the entire trust, your trustee can provide a certification of trust: a shorter document confirming the trust exists, identifying the trustee and their powers, and describing how the trustee should take title, all without disclosing who gets what.7Justia Law. Florida Code 736.1017 – Certification of Trust Anyone who relies on a valid certification in good faith is protected from liability, which is why financial institutions accept it.
Vehicles and boats require a title transfer through the Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles using the state’s standard title application.8Florida Department of Highway Safety and Motor Vehicles. Application for Certificate of Motor Vehicle Title Non-titled personal property such as furniture, art, jewelry, and household items is usually transferred by a general assignment document that conveys everything not specifically listed elsewhere. Keep records of every transfer; the trustee will eventually need to prove what the trust owns.
Retirement Accounts
IRAs and 401(k) accounts are handled differently. You don’t retitle them; you change the beneficiary designation. Naming a revocable trust as the beneficiary can give you more control over post-death distributions, particularly if you want to shield a beneficiary from creditors, provide for a minor, or steer assets toward children from a prior marriage. The tradeoff is that routing retirement funds through a trust can accelerate the required distribution timeline if the trust doesn’t meet specific IRS requirements. For straightforward family situations, naming individuals directly is usually simpler and more tax-efficient. Blended families, minor children, or beneficiaries with special needs are situations where the added control may be worth the complexity.
Changing or Canceling the Trust Later
A revocable trust can be amended or canceled at any time while you’re alive and competent.9Florida Senate. Florida Code 736.0602 – Revocation or Amendment of Revocable Trust If the trust document sets out a specific method for changes, follow it. Many trusts require a written amendment signed with the same formalities as the original.
If the trust is silent on method, you can revoke or amend it through a later will or codicil that expressly refers to the trust, or through any method that shows your intent by clear and convincing evidence. A formal written amendment is always the safest route. Oral changes and informal notes invite litigation. Each amendment should reference the original trust by name and date, spell out exactly what’s changing, and be signed and witnessed the same way the trust was. If you revoke or amend without telling your trustee, Florida law protects the trustee who keeps following the old terms in good faith, but the sensible practice is to notify them promptly.
Why You Still Need a Pour-Over Will
No matter how careful you are about funding, some asset can slip through. You might buy a new car two weeks before you die and never retitle it. A pour-over will directs that any asset left in your individual name at death be transferred into the trust, so your trust’s distribution plan governs everything.
The catch: assets passing through a pour-over will must go through probate first. They don’t get the probate-avoidance benefit of assets already inside the trust. If what’s left outside the trust (minus exempt property) doesn’t exceed $75,000, your family can use Florida’s streamlined summary administration process instead of full probate.10Florida Senate. Florida Code 735.201 – Summary Administration; Nature of Proceedings Summary administration is also available for any estate where the decedent has been dead more than two years, regardless of value.
A pour-over will also lets you name a guardian for minor children, which a trust cannot do. Skipping it leaves a gap the probate court will fill on its own terms.
What a Revocable Trust Will Not Do
A common misconception is that a revocable trust shields your assets from creditors. It doesn’t. Florida law is explicit: property in a revocable trust is subject to your creditors’ claims during your lifetime to the same extent it would be if you owned the property directly.11Florida Legislature. Florida Code 736.0505 – Creditors Claims Against Settlor A spendthrift clause doesn’t change that. Because you retain the power to revoke and reclaim the assets, courts treat them as yours for creditor purposes.
Medicaid takes the same view. Because you can pull the funds back at any time, the state counts everything in the trust as an available resource when determining long-term care eligibility. A revocable trust provides zero Medicaid planning benefit. If you need to protect assets for potential long-term care, an irrevocable trust is the conversation to have with an attorney, well ahead of any application, given Florida Medicaid’s five-year look-back period on most asset transfers.
Tax Treatment
Income Taxes During Your Lifetime
While you’re alive and the trust remains revocable, the IRS treats it as a grantor trust and ignores it for income tax purposes. All income earned by trust assets is reported on your personal Form 1040. The trust needs no separate tax identification number, and you don’t file a Form 1041 for it. That changes at death, when the trust becomes irrevocable and starts filing its own returns.
Estate Taxes
Assets in a revocable trust are included in your taxable estate because you kept control over them. For 2026, the federal estate and gift tax exemption is $15 million per person under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act signed into law on July 4, 2025.12Internal Revenue Service. Whats New Estate and Gift Tax Married couples who make a portability election can shield up to $30 million combined. The exemption will be indexed for inflation starting in 2027. Estates above the exemption face a 40 percent federal tax rate. Florida imposes no state estate or inheritance tax.
Step-Up in Basis
Beneficiaries who receive assets from a revocable trust get a stepped-up cost basis at death. Under federal law, the basis of property acquired from a decedent resets to fair market value on the date of death.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent If you bought a house for $200,000 and it’s worth $600,000 when you die, your beneficiary’s basis becomes $600,000. Selling immediately would trigger little or no capital gains tax. This applies to revocable trust assets the same way it applies to property passing through a will.
What the Trustee Does After Your Death
When the settlor dies, a revocable trust becomes irrevocable and the successor trustee takes on real fiduciary duties. The trustee must keep beneficiaries reasonably informed about the trust and its administration. Qualified beneficiaries can request relevant information about trust assets and liabilities at any time, and the trustee must provide an accounting at least annually and at the termination of the trust or on a change of trustee.14Florida Legislature. Florida Code 736.0813 – Duty to Inform and Account A beneficiary can waive that duty, but the default is full transparency.
Beyond accounting, the successor trustee is responsible for collecting and valuing trust assets, paying outstanding debts and taxes, filing the trust’s first Form 1041, and distributing property under the trust’s terms. Serving as trustee is compensable work, and Florida law entitles a trustee to reasonable compensation even when the trust document is silent on the amount.3Florida Legislature. Florida Code 736.0708 – Compensation of Trustee If the trust holds complex assets or the family dynamics are contentious, a professional trustee or co-trustee is often worth the cost.