El texto completo de esta guía está en inglés; el resumen anterior está en su idioma. Los resúmenes de las leyes y el inglés siguen siendo la fuente de referencia.
Getting started · 6 min de lectura
Accepting (or declining) the trusteeship
Texas treats becoming trustee as a choice. Under §112.009, the signature of the person named as trustee on the trust instrument or on a separate written acceptance is conclusive evidence of acceptance, and a person who exercises power or performs duties under the trust is presumed to have accepted — except that a named trustee may inspect the trust property, or act to preserve it, for a reasonable time without accepting.
Declining is a recognized path as well. A person named as trustee who does not accept is not the trustee, and the instrument's succession provisions decide who serves next; where the instrument names no one, §113.083 provides that a court may — and on the petition of an interested person shall — appoint a successor in whom the trust vests. Nothing in the Code obliges a named person to serve.
The standard that governs everything else
Once the office is accepted, §113.051 provides the umbrella duty: the trustee shall administer the trust in good faith according to its terms and the Trust Code, and, absent contrary terms, shall perform all of the duties imposed on trustees by the common law. That sentence is where the duties of loyalty, impartiality and care enter a Texas trust — the Code names them for investments in chapter 117 (§§117.007, 117.008, 117.004) and leaves the rest to the common law the general duty incorporates.
The terms of the trust come first in most things: §111.0035 provides that the instrument prevails over the Code's default rules, but lists what no instrument can take away — among them the duty to respond to a demand for an accounting from a beneficiary entitled to distributions (§113.151) and, for a beneficiary 25 or older of an irrevocable trust, the common-law duty to keep that beneficiary reasonably informed. Reading the instrument beside those mandatory rules is the first act of administration.
What Texas does not require — and what it does
Texas sets no court filing to open a trust administration, no registration of the trust, and no statutory notice that must go out within a fixed number of days of a death. A successor trustee in Texas begins by accepting, gathering the instrument and its amendments, and identifying the beneficiaries and the property — the review of the assets within a reasonable time that §117.006 requires of a trustee who takes office or receives assets.
What the Code does require arrives on demand and over time: a written statement of accounts within 90 days of a beneficiary's written demand (§113.151), answers to the beneficiaries' reasonable requests for information under the common-law duty the instrument cannot waive for adult distributees (§111.0035), the prudent management of what the trust holds (chapter 117), and the records that make an accounting possible (§113.152). A certification of trust under §114.086 is the document banks and title companies will ask for first.
The estate beside the trust
A revocable trust rarely holds everything. Property left outside it passes under the will — through an independent administration where the will asks for one (Est. Code §401.001), through a muniment of title where the estate owes no unpaid debt (Est. Code §257.001), or by a small-estate affidavit where there is no will and the estate is small (Est. Code §205.001). The executor's clocks — the creditor notice, the inventory before the 91st day, the four-year window to probate — belong to the estate, not to the trust, even when the same person holds both offices.
Keeping the two records apart is the discipline Texas asks of a person who is both successor trustee and executor: the trust's money, the trust's accounting and the trust's releases on one side; the estate's filings, claims and distributions on the other. A licensed Texas attorney can say which office a given asset answers to; TrusteeClear organizes the trust's side and keeps the estate's dates visible beside it.
Las leyes, textualmente
Default and mandatory rules; conflict between terms and statute
§ PR.111.0035 ↗Explicación clara y sencilla; el texto literal del estatuto aún no está atestiguado en nuestra biblioteca. Consulte el estatuto oficial en el enlace de arriba.
Acceptance by trustee
§ PR.112.009 ↗Explicación clara y sencilla; el texto literal del estatuto aún no está atestiguado en nuestra biblioteca. Consulte el estatuto oficial en el enlace de arriba.
General duty
§ PR.113.051 ↗Explicación clara y sencilla; el texto literal del estatuto aún no está atestiguado en nuestra biblioteca. Consulte el estatuto oficial en el enlace de arriba.
Preguntas frecuentes
Do I have to accept the trusteeship?
No. Under §112.009 a named trustee accepts by signing the instrument or a written acceptance, or by exercising trust powers; a person who inspects or preserves the property for a reasonable time has not accepted. Someone who does not accept is not the trustee, and the instrument's succession terms — or a court under §113.083 — supply the next trustee.
Does a Texas trustee have to notify the beneficiaries when the settlor dies?
Texas sets no statutory opening notice. The duty that exists is the common-law duty to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed, which §111.0035 says the instrument cannot limit for a beneficiary 25 or older who is entitled or permitted to receive distributions from an irrevocable trust, and the duty to deliver a written statement of accounts within 90 days of a written demand (§113.151).
Where do a Texas trustee's duties actually come from?
From the instrument first (§111.0035), then from the Trust Code's general duty to administer in good faith according to the terms and the Code (§113.051), the prudent investor rule and its companions in chapter 117, the accounting sections (§§113.151–113.152), and the common law the general duty incorporates. A licensed Texas attorney can read your instrument against those sources.
Lecturas relacionadas
Este producto no sustituye el asesoramiento de un abogado.
El Centro de Aprendizaje es información general sobre la ley de Texas — no es asesoría legal ni sustituye el consejo de un abogado de Texas con licencia sobre sus hechos específicos. TrusteeClear es software, no un bufete.