A Utah living trust is a written arrangement, governed by Title 75B of the Utah Code, that holds your property during your lifetime under your own control and passes it directly to your beneficiaries when you die without going through probate. To set one up, you sign a trust document that meets five statutory requirements, name yourself as trustee and a successor to take over later, and then formally transfer your assets into the trust’s name. That last step is where most plans fail.
What a Living Trust Does in Utah
A revocable living trust is a container. You create it, put property in it, and stay in charge of that property until you can’t or don’t want to be. When you die, whoever you named as successor trustee takes over and distributes what’s in the trust according to your instructions, privately and without a court file.
Utah reorganized its trust statutes in a two-year recodification that finished in 2025, moving them from Title 75, Chapter 7 into a new Title 75B.1Utah Legislature. Summary of Estate Planning Recodification The substance of the rules didn’t change, but the section numbers did. Older trust documents that cite Title 75, Chapter 7 are still valid; the provisions they reference just live at new addresses now.
Legal Requirements to Create One
Under Utah Code 75B-2-402, a valid trust needs five elements:2Utah Legislature. Utah Code 75B-2-402 – Requirements for Creation
- Capacity equal to what’s required to make a will, meaning you are at least 18 and of sound mind.
- Intent to create the trust, usually shown by a signed written document.
- At least one definite beneficiary, whether a person, a charity, or a class of people who can be identified now or in the future.
- Actual duties for the trustee to perform.
- Different people filling the roles of sole trustee and sole beneficiary. The same person can’t hold both alone.
Utah does not technically require the trust to be in writing. An oral trust can be enforced if proven by clear and convincing evidence.3Utah Legislature. Utah Code Title 75B – Trusts In practice, anyone setting up a living trust should put it in writing and sign it. Notarization isn’t legally required either, but it makes the document harder to challenge later.
The document is only half the job. A trust doesn’t do anything until property is transferred into it.
Who Fills Which Role
Three roles run every living trust. In a typical revocable trust, one person fills two of them at the start.
The settlor creates the trust, sets the terms, and moves property in. Almost always, the settlor also names themselves as the initial trustee, which means you keep managing your own money the way you always have. You can sell the house, close the account, or shift investments without asking anyone.
The trustee owes a duty of loyalty to the beneficiaries. Utah law says the trustee must administer the trust solely in the beneficiaries’ interests, and any transaction where the trustee’s personal interests conflict with that duty is voidable.4Utah Legislature. Utah Code 75B-2-802 – Duty of Loyalty You can name an individual, a bank, or a trust company. Professional trustees charge fees but offer investment expertise and continuity.
The beneficiaries are the people or organizations who ultimately receive the property. You can structure distributions any way you want: outright at death, in stages tied to ages, or as ongoing income over years. More complex instructions mean the trust exists longer after you die.
The Successor Trustee
The successor trustee may be the single most important appointment in the whole document. This is the person who takes over if you become incapacitated or when you die. Without one, your family may need a court order to reach the trust assets, which is exactly what the trust was supposed to avoid.
Most living trusts spell out how incapacity is determined, usually by written certification from one or two physicians. Once that certification exists, the successor trustee shows it to banks and other institutions alongside the trust document as proof of authority. No court is involved. That transition is one of the strongest practical advantages of a living trust over a plan built only around a will.
Funding the Trust
A living trust only controls property that has been formally moved into it. This is where most Utah estate plans quietly fall apart. People sign the document, feel finished, and never retitle their assets. Everything then passes through probate anyway.
Real Estate
Real property is transferred with a new deed, typically a quitclaim deed, naming the trust as owner. A home held by “Jane Smith” would be deeded to “Jane Smith, Trustee of the Jane Smith Revocable Living Trust.” The deed has to be recorded with the county recorder’s office in the county where the property sits, and Utah recording fees are typically $40 per document.5Utah County Recorder’s Office. Recording Fees
Bank and Brokerage Accounts
Financial accounts need to be retitled in the trust’s name. Every institution has its own forms. Usually you bring a copy of the trust’s first few pages, called a certification or abstract, along with identification. Some banks open a new account in the trust’s name and close the old one; others simply relabel the existing account.
Retirement Accounts
Do not retitle an IRA, 401(k), or similar retirement account into the trust. Transferring ownership of a retirement account to a trust triggers an immediate taxable distribution of the whole balance. Retirement accounts pass through beneficiary designations instead. You name individuals as primary beneficiaries and use the trust only as a contingent beneficiary when there is a specific reason, such as controlling distributions to minors.
When a trust is the beneficiary of an IRA, the inherited account generally has to be emptied by December 31 of the tenth year after the owner’s death. Individual beneficiaries sometimes have more flexible options. Getting this wrong on a large account can cost tens of thousands in accelerated taxes.
Personal Property
Vehicles, furniture, jewelry, and other tangible items can be moved in through a written assignment. Many people use a single “assignment of personal property” that sweeps in anything not deeded or retitled separately. Life insurance is usually handled through beneficiary designations rather than being owned by the trust, though the right approach depends on your estate tax picture.
Why You Still Need a Pour-Over Will
Even a well-funded trust needs a pour-over will as a safety net. A pour-over will is a short document that names your trust as the beneficiary of anything you owned at death that wasn’t already inside the trust. Buy a new car, open a new account, forget to retitle it: the pour-over will catches it.
The catch is that assets flowing through the pour-over will still go through probate first, because a will is a probate instrument. The trust’s terms then govern the final distribution. It’s a backup, not a plan. The goal is to fund the trust with everything during your lifetime and let the pour-over will handle stragglers.
Changing or Revoking the Trust
A revocable living trust can be changed or dissolved at any time while you’re alive and mentally competent. Utah Code 75B-2-602 controls the mechanics.6Utah Legislature. Utah Code 75B-2-602 – Revocation or Amendment of Revocable Trust The capacity required is the same as the capacity to create the trust in the first place.
To revoke, follow the procedure in the trust document. If the document is silent, a signed writing delivered to the trustee will work. To amend, draft a formal amendment that identifies the specific provisions being changed, sign it, and attach it to the original. Notarizing amendments isn’t required but adds protection.
If you’ve stacked up multiple amendments over the years, consider a full restatement. A restatement replaces the entire trust document with a clean updated version while keeping the original trust in existence, so property titled in the trust’s name stays put.
What Happens When You Die
At death, a revocable trust typically becomes irrevocable and the successor trustee steps in. Distributions don’t happen right away. The trustee first handles debts and expenses, and Utah law allows a reasonable reserve for those obligations before anything goes out to beneficiaries.7Utah Legislature. Utah Code 75-7-815 – Distribution Upon Termination
The trustee can publish notice to creditors in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the settlor lived and must mail direct written notice to known creditors. Creditors then have three months from the first publication date, or 60 days from the mailed notice, whichever is later, to present claims or be permanently barred.8Utah Legislature. Utah Code 75B-2-508 – Notice to Creditors If the settlor received Medicaid after age 55, the trustee has to notify the Utah Department of Health and Human Services so the state can pursue any recovery claim.
Once debts are settled and the creditor window closes, the trustee distributes the remainder according to the trust’s terms. This is considerably faster than probate, which in Utah can run six months to over a year, and it’s private. The trust document and asset list never become part of a public court file.
What a Revocable Trust Won’t Do
Two boundaries matter, because people assume living trusts handle both.
A revocable living trust gives you essentially no asset protection from creditors during your lifetime. Because you can revoke the trust and take the property back whenever you want, courts treat the assets as yours. If you’re sued or owe debts, creditors can reach them. After death, trust assets stay exposed to the settlor’s creditors through the notice period described above. Utah has an irrevocable asset protection trust statute in Title 75B for people whose main goal is shielding wealth, but those trusts require permanently giving up control.
A revocable trust also does not help with Medicaid eligibility. Under federal law, the full value of a revocable trust is counted as an available resource when Medicaid evaluates you, payments from the trust to you count as income, and payments to anyone else are treated as asset transfers that can trigger a penalty period.9Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 42 USC 1396p – Liens, Adjustments and Recoveries, and Transfers of Assets Long-term care planning is a separate exercise, usually involving an irrevocable trust funded at least five years before care is needed.
Tax Consequences
While you’re alive, a revocable trust is invisible to the IRS. You report all trust income on your personal return using your own Social Security number, exactly as if the trust didn’t exist.10Internal Revenue Service. Trust Primer The trust files no separate return and saves no income taxes.
Assets in the trust are included in your taxable estate at death.11Internal Revenue Service. Estate Tax Starting January 1, 2026, the federal estate tax exemption is $15 million per individual and $30 million for married couples, after the One Big Beautiful Bill Act permanently increased and indexed the amount.12Internal Revenue Service. What’s New – Estate and Gift Tax Estates exceeding the exemption face a graduated federal tax topping out at 40%.13Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 2001 – Imposition and Rate of Tax Utah imposes no state estate or inheritance tax; the state repealed its inheritance tax after December 31, 2004.14Utah State Tax Commission. Inheritance Tax
Once the trust becomes irrevocable at your death, it becomes its own taxpayer. The trustee must file IRS Form 1041 if the trust earns more than $600 in gross income during the year.15Internal Revenue Service. About Form 1041, U.S. Income Tax Return for Estates and Trusts Income distributed to beneficiaries is taxed to them at their individual rates. Income retained inside the trust runs into compressed brackets that reach the top 37% rate at just over $16,000 for 2026, where an individual doesn’t hit that rate until income exceeds roughly $626,000.16Internal Revenue Service. 2026 Form 1041-ES That’s why trustees generally distribute income to beneficiaries when the trust terms allow it.
The one clear tax win for property passing through a living trust is the step-up in basis. When you die, assets in the trust receive a new tax basis equal to their fair market value on the date of death.17Office of the Law Revision Counsel. 26 USC 1014 – Basis of Property Acquired From a Decedent A home bought for $200,000 and worth $500,000 at your death gives your beneficiary a $500,000 basis. If they sell it for that amount shortly after, they owe no capital gains tax on the $300,000 of appreciation. Federal law extends this treatment to revocable trust property because it’s treated as passing from the decedent.18Internal Revenue Service. Gifts and Inheritances