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Valor Tax Relief Team
Estate planning articles
Published: October 2, 2026
Last Updated: October 2, 2026
The Short Answer
A living trust is a legal paper you create while you are alive. The usual estate version is a revocable living trust. You can change it or unwind it while you still have capacity. You typically name yourself trustee, keep living in the house, and spend the accounts you retitle. After death, or if you cannot act, a successor trustee follows the paper.
The CFPB is the encyclopedia on this search. The trust only controls property actually transferred into it. Signing the booklet does not move the house. Valor’s trust formation is that paper plus the deeds, not a kit we email.
What the CFPB Means
Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, in short
A revocable living trust is an arrangement in a legal document. It lets someone decide about money or property held in the trust. People use it to keep using those assets, to name who takes them at death, and to skip probate on what the trust owns. Probate is public and can be slow and expensive. The trust is ineffective until you put property in it.
That last sentence is the whole job. If you compared labels first, living trust vs will is the court split. This page is the definition. How to fund a living trust is the deed work.
Grantor, Trustee, Beneficiary
The CFPB names three seats. The person who makes the trust is the settlor, grantor, or trustor. The person who decides about property in the trust is the trustee, a fiduciary. The people who receive money or property are beneficiaries. While you are alive you are usually all three: you made it, you run it, you spend it.
| Seat | Who it usually is | What they do |
|---|---|---|
| Grantor | You | Create, amend, or revoke while you have capacity |
| Trustee | You, then a successor | Title, bills, investments, later distributions |
| Beneficiary | You now, heirs later | Use the assets; residuary heirs take what remains |
A successor trustee can act only if the sitting trustee cannot, including death or disability. That job is what is a successor trustee. Co-trustees are two people acting at once. Pick people who can actually sign a deed.
How It Actually Works
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1
Sign a revocable living trust that names you trustee and names a successor. Notarize it under your state rules.
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2
Fund it. Record a deed for the house to you as trustee of the named trust, with the trust date. Retitle bank and brokerage accounts. Leave IRAs on the beneficiary form unless a tax advisor says otherwise.
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3
Keep a pour-over will. It catches a car or account you later buy in your own name. It is also how you nominate a guardian. Those leftovers still probate first.
If you cannot act, the successor pays bills from trust accounts without a conservatorship on those assets. After death, funded title typically stays out of probate. Unfunded title does not. Revocable vs irrevocable is the control split. This page is the everyday revocable version.
What It Does Not Do
Not a last will
A will names heirs through court and can name a guardian. The trust holds title you moved. You usually need both.
Not a living will
Hospital treatment instructions are a separate paper. What is a living will is that list.
Not a tax shelter
While the trust is revocable you still report the income on Form 1040. The 2026 federal estate-tax exemption is $15 million per person. A simple revocable trust does not cut that tax. Tax on a revocable living trust is the return question.
It is also not a lady bird deed and not a transfer-on-death deed. Those are recorder products for one parcel. A funded trust can cover the house, accounts, and incapacity in one file. How to avoid probate lists the other shortcuts.
Marisol’s Unfunded Booklet
Marisol signs a living trust at the kitchen table. The house deed still lists her as an individual. She dies. The successor trustee opens the booklet. The county recorder still shows her name. That house goes through probate. The trust instructions sit unused on the asset that mattered.
If the empty deed is yours, start with trust formation and the recording job, not a comparison chart you already read. Living trust on a house is the recorder version of the same point.
How Valor Helps
We prepare the revocable living trust and the funding papers for the state that applies to you. The pour-over will sits in the same file. We do not host a national PDF. We do not tell you the booklet hides the house from the IRS.
The CFPB remains the consumer explainer. Our job is the signed trust plus a recorded deed. Fees are quoted before you hire.
Frequently Asked Questions
Need a Living Trust Prepared?
Request a consult. An attorney prepares the revocable living trust and the funding deeds. We do not email a kit.
Request a consult