WillMaker uses plain language (and not legalese) whenever possible. However, the law is saturated with legalese and terms of art, which you might encounter when speaking with your lawyer or doing additional research. Here are some simple definitions for some common trust-related terms.
Acknowledgment
A notation and official seal, made on or attached to a document by a notary public ,certifying that you signed the document.
Alternates
Back-ups named in a legal document who will get a role if the first choice is unavailable or declines to serve.
Assignment of property
A document attached to a living trust that transfers the grantor's property into the trust.
Beneficiaries
The inheritors who get trust property when the grantor dies.
Capacity
The mental competency required to make legal decisions for yourself .
Certification of trust
A document that states that your trust exists and gives the trustee and successor trustee certain listed powers, without going into the details of who gets what. Banks and other institutions will ask to see it before they agree to work with trustees.
Child's trust
A trust set up to benefit a minor or young adult, often created as part of an overarching will or living trust.
Custodian
A Uniform Transfers to Minors Act (UTMA) custodian is the person named to manage a young person's property through the UTMA).
Decedent
A person who has died.
Decision maker
In a living trust, the person named by the grantor to decide when the grantor no longer has the capacity to manage trust property (as used in WillMaker's living trust and possibly other trusts).
Declaration of trust
The official name of a living trust document.
Descendant
A person who follows in a person's familial line by blood or adoption.
Durable power of attorney
A power of attorney that stays in effect even when the principal does not have the capacity to manage their own affairs.
Effective date
The date on which a document or a law is legally enforceable (this date need not be the date that the document was signed).
Estate
All property owned by a person when they die.
Executor
The person named in a will to wrap up a will maker's estate.
Finalizing
The steps you take to make your document effective, like signing your trust and having it notarized.
Funding a trust
Transferring property into a trust by listing the property on an assignment of property or by changing the property's ownership document (such as a deed). (See also: titled property, untitled property).
Goes into effect
Becomes legally operative (for example, a will that names an executor becomes legally valid on the date that it is properly executed, even though the executor won't need to do any work until the will maker dies).
Grantor
A person who makes a living trust and transfers property into it (or who hires a lawyer to do so); also known as a "trustor" or "settlor."
Health care directive
A document that states a person's wishes regarding health care or names a trusted person to see that those wishes are carried out, or both.
Heir
A person entitled by law to inherit an estate property when there is no will or other estate planning device.
Inheritor
A person or organization who inherits property.
Instrument
A legal document; often used to refer to the document that creates a trust.
Inter vivos trust
A trust that takes effect during your life (Compare: testamentary trust).
Intestate
To die without a will or other estate planning device in place.
Intestate succession
The system provided by state law for distributing a person's property when that person did not have a will or other estate planning device in place.
Irrevocable trust
A trust that cannot be changed or revoked by the grantor.
Issue
The direct descendants of the deceased person (children, grandchildren, and so on). In some states, children of the deceased person's spouse, unless legally adopted, might not be considered "children." .
Joint tenancy
A way to co-own property so that when one owner dies, that person's share of the property goes to the other owner(s).
Minor
A person under 18 years of age.
Notarial certificate
A notary public's official text, signature, and stamp on (or attached to) a document.
Notary public
A person authorized to certify signatures and oaths.
Personal guardian
A person assigned to take care of a minor when the minor's legal guardian is unavailable.
Personal property
An item you own that is not real estate (Compare: real property).
Personal representative
In probate, a person appointed by the court to manage the decedent's affairs.
Pour-over will
A backup will that transfers property to a living trust after the death of the testator.
Power of attorney
A legal document through which you authorize someone else to act for you.
Principal
The person who makes a power of attorney and gives the agent the power to act on their behalf.
Probate
The court process for managing a person's estate after death.
Property management
Arrangements made in a will or living trust to take care of property left to minors or young people (See also: UTMA, child's trust).
Property schedule
Attachments to a living trust document that list trust property
An individual trust will have just one property schedule, but a shared trust might have up to three—two that list the separately-owned property of each grantor and a third that lists the property that the grantors own jointly.
Quitclaim deed
A simple deed that transfers real property to a new owner without any guarantees about the land or the ownership.
Real property
Land and items attached to the land, such as buildings, houses, and fences (Compare: personal property).
Residuary beneficiary
The beneficiary who gets all remaining property that passes through a will or living trust after all other property has been distributed.
Restatement of trust
A revised version of a living trust; the trust title, however, retains the date of the original trust. (Compare: trust amendment).
Revocable trust
A trust that can be revoked or changed by its grantor.
Right of survivorship
When a co-owner dies, the right of the remaining owner(s) to inherit the deceased owner's share of the property.
Subtrust
A trust created within a will or trust.
Successor trustee
The person named in a living trust to take over as trustee after the grantor dies (or, in the case of a shared trust, after the surviving grantor has died).
Surviving grantor
In a shared trust, the still-living grantor after the other grantor dies.
Survivorship period
The period of time a beneficiary must live after the death of the decedent to inherit the decedent's property.
Tenancy in common
A way of co-owning property that allows each owner to name a beneficiary for their share.
Testamentary trust
A trust created within a will that takes effect only when the testator dies (Compare: inter vivos trust).
Testator
A person who makes a will.
Titled property
Property with an official ownership document that is recorded or issued by an institution. Titled property includes real estate, vehicles, bank accounts, securities, insurance policies, and retirement accounts. (Compare: untitled property).
Transfer on death deed
A deed that an owner of real estate prepares while alive, which transfers real estate to named beneficiaries without the need for probate upon the owner's death.
Trust amendment
A document that describes simple changes a grantor makes to a living trust (Compare: restatement of trust).
Trust property
Property officially and correctly transferred into a trust by the grantor.
Trustee
The person who controls trust property and follows the terms of the trust.
Untitled property
Property that does not have an ownership document (Compare: titled property).
UTMA
The Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, passed separately in every state, which provides a system for leaving property to young people in the care of a custodian.
Witnessing
The act of physically watching someone sign a document. Witnesses then sign the document themselves, thereby attesting to the signer's apparent mental competency.
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