Términos de fideicomisos de Texas, definidos

Revisado contra los Estatutos de Texas el 2026-10-04. Información general, no asesoría legal; el texto oficial prevalece.

Settlor

The person who creates a trust (Prop. Code §111.004); also called the grantor or trustor. A settlor may revoke the trust unless the instrument makes it irrevocable by its express terms (§112.051).

Trustee

The person holding the trust property in trust — the original, an additional or a successor trustee (Prop. Code §111.004). A trustee administers the trust in good faith according to its terms and the Texas Trust Code (§113.051).

Successor trustee

The trustee who takes over when the original trustee dies, resigns, is removed or can no longer serve. Signing the instrument or a separate written acceptance is conclusive evidence of accepting (§112.009); a trustee resigns as the terms provide or with a court's permission (§113.081), and is removed as the terms provide or by a court (§113.082).

Beneficiary

A person for whose benefit property is held in trust, whatever the nature of the interest (Prop. Code §111.004). Texas has no "qualified beneficiary" class; each provision names its own recipients.

Interested person

A trustee, beneficiary or any other person with an interest in or a claim against the trust, or a person affected by the administration (Prop. Code §111.004) — the people who may petition the court about the trust.

Trust property

The property held in trust and its proceeds (Prop. Code §111.004). Trust property is not liable for the trustee's personal obligations (§114.0821).

Express trust

A fiduciary relationship with respect to property that arises from the settlor's manifested intention to create it, subjecting the trustee to equitable duties (Prop. Code §111.004). A trust in real or personal property is enforceable only on written terms signed by the settlor or the settlor's agent, with stated exceptions (§112.004).

Revocable trust

A trust the settlor can revoke, modify or amend during life. In Texas a trust is revocable unless the instrument makes it irrevocable by its express terms (Prop. Code §112.051); at the settlor's death it becomes irrevocable and its administration begins.

Irrevocable trust

A trust the settlor cannot revoke or amend, because its terms say so or because the settlor has died. For an irrevocable trust the terms cannot limit the duty to keep a beneficiary who is 25 or older informed, nor the duty to answer a current or presumptive remainder beneficiary's accounting demand (Prop. Code §111.0035(b)–(c)).

Spendthrift trust

A trust whose terms keep a beneficiary's interest from being voluntarily or involuntarily transferred before payment, so a creditor cannot reach it (Prop. Code §112.035). A settlor who is also a beneficiary does not get the protection as to that interest, with the section's exceptions.

Certification of trust

A signed statement a trustee may furnish instead of the trust instrument, stating that the trust exists and its date, the settlor, the trustee and the trustee's powers, as the section lists (Prop. Code §114.086). A person who relies on it is protected; it is not a court filing.

Accounting (statement of accounts)

The written statement a beneficiary may demand, delivered on or before the 90th day after the trustee receives the demand unless a court allows longer, and not more than once every 12 months unless a court orders otherwise (Prop. Code §113.151). It shows the trust property on hand, receipts and disbursements, each known liability and the other items the statute lists (§113.152).

Fiduciary duty

The obligations a trustee owes the beneficiaries: to administer the trust in good faith according to its terms and the Trust Code (Prop. Code §113.051), and in investing and managing to use prudence (§117.004), loyalty (§117.007) and impartiality (§117.008).

Breach of trust

A trustee's violation of a duty owed to a beneficiary, for which the trustee is accountable for the loss, depreciation or profit the statute describes (Prop. Code §114.001). The remedies include compelling performance, enjoining a breach, surcharge, removal and an accounting (§114.008).

Release

A beneficiary's written agreement relieving the trustee of liability. It binds only with the full information the statute requires (Prop. Code §114.005), and a written trustee–beneficiary agreement — a release, consent or indemnity — binds on the conditions §114.032 states.

Cotrustee

One of two or more trustees serving together. Cotrustees act by majority decision, with the statute's rules for a cotrustee who is unavailable or dissents (Prop. Code §113.085); when one cotrustee answers for another's breach is §114.006.

Trustee compensation

Unless the terms provide otherwise, a trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation; Texas sets no schedule, and a court may deny all or part of it for a breach of trust (Prop. Code §114.061). Expenses are reimbursed from trust property as §114.063 provides.

Decanting

A trustee's distribution of trust principal to a second trust under the subchapter the Trust Code provides (Prop. Code §§112.071–112.087): full discretion under §112.072, limited discretion under §112.073, with written notice at least 30 days before the distribution (§112.074).

Directed trust

A trust whose terms give an advisor — a protector among them — powers of direction over investment, distribution or other matters (Prop. Code §114.0031). Texas's own section, not the Uniform Directed Trust Act, sets the directed trustee's duties and the limits of its duty to monitor.

Prudent investor rule

The investment standard for a Texas trustee: invest and manage trust assets as a prudent investor would, considering the trust's purposes, terms, distribution requirements and other circumstances, judging each decision as part of the whole portfolio (Prop. Code §§117.003–117.004); review the assets within a reasonable time of taking office (§117.006).

Principal and income

The two accounts a trust keeps: principal is the property held for the remainder beneficiaries; income is what the property earns for the current beneficiaries. Texas allocates receipts and disbursements under its Uniform Principal and Income Act (Prop. Code chapter 116; the fiduciary's duties: §116.004).

Mineral interest

An interest in oil, gas or other minerals — a common Texas trust asset. Receipts from oil, gas and other natural resources are allocated between income and principal as Prop. Code §116.174 provides.

Community property

Property acquired by either spouse during marriage other than separate property (Fam. Code §§3.001–3.002). Texas is a community-property state: whether an asset is community, separate or unknown shapes what the trust holds and what passes at death (intestacy of the community estate: Est. Code §201.003).

Separate property

Property a spouse owned before marriage, or acquired during marriage by gift, devise or descent, or as the recovery for personal injuries the section describes (Fam. Code §3.001). At death a separate estate passes under Est. Code §201.002 when there is no will.

Homestead

The Texas residence protected by the constitution from forced sale by most creditors (Tex. Const. art. XVI, §50). Texas puts no restriction on devising a homestead, but a homestead may not be partitioned while the surviving spouse elects to use or occupy it (art. XVI, §52).

Per capita with representation

Texas's default for dividing an intestate share among descendants: the property is divided into as many shares as there are living descendants in the nearest generation with a living member, plus deceased members of that generation who left descendants, and the shares of the deceased pass to their descendants (Est. Code §201.101). Not per stirpes, which divides at the children's generation even when none survives.

Independent administration

The usual Texas probate path: an independent executor administers the estate without the court's supervision of each step (Est. Code chapters 401–405). An interested person may demand an accounting after 15 months, answered within 60 days (§404.001).

Muniment of title

A Texas probate of a will as a muniment of title alone, when the estate has no unpaid debts other than those secured by real estate and no need for an administration: the order admitting the will transfers title without appointing a representative (Est. Code chapter 257).

Personal representative

The executor or administrator of a probate estate, appointed by the court and issued letters. The representative — not the trustee — gives the estate's creditor notices (Est. Code §§308.051, 308.053) and files the inventory, appraisement and list of claims (§309.051); the trust's file records those events beside its own.

Medical power of attorney

Texas's instrument naming an agent to make health care decisions when the principal cannot, executed as Health & Safety Code §166.154 provides, on the form §166.164 prescribes — Texas's counterpart to a health care surrogate designation.

Directive to physicians

A competent adult's written directive about life-sustaining treatment in a terminal or irreversible condition, executed and given to the physician as Health & Safety Code §166.032 provides — Texas's living will.

Estate tax

Texas has no state estate or inheritance tax (Tex. Const. art. VIII, §26). The federal estate tax applies on its own terms: Form 706 is due nine months after death when the gross estate exceeds the filing threshold, or to elect portability.

Employer identification number (EIN)

The federal tax identification number an irrevocable trust obtains from the IRS (Form SS-4) once it becomes a separate taxpayer; a revocable trust used the settlor's Social Security number, and that stops at death.

Schedule K-1

The federal form a trust issues to each beneficiary who received distributable income for the year, reporting the beneficiary's share of the trust's income, with the trust's Form 1041.

Portability

The federal election that lets a surviving spouse use a deceased spouse's unused estate tax exclusion; it is made on a timely federal estate tax return, Form 706, even when no tax is due.