Florida trust terms, defined

Reviewed against the Florida Statutes on 2026-09-09. General information, not legal advice; the official text controls.

Settlor

The person who creates a trust, by signing the trust instrument and transferring property to it; also called the grantor or trustmaker. While a trust is revocable, the trustee's duties are owed to the settlor alone (§736.0603). Guide: After You Sign Your Florida Trust: What Happens Next

Trustee

The person or institution that holds legal title to the trust property and administers it under the trust's terms and the Florida Trust Code's duties (§§736.0801–736.0817). The word includes an original, additional, cotrustee or successor trustee (§736.0103). Guide: Florida Successor Trustee Duties After Death

Successor trustee

The trustee named to take over when the original trustee dies, resigns, is removed or can no longer serve. A successor accepts under §736.0701 and, on accepting, holds the same duties and powers as the original trustee. Guide: Florida Successor Trustee: Accepting the Role

Beneficiary

A person who has a present or future beneficial interest in a trust, vested or contingent, or who holds a power of appointment over trust property in a capacity other than trustee (§736.0103).

Qualified beneficiary

A living beneficiary who, on the date in question, is a distributee or permissible distributee of trust income or principal, or would be one if the current distributees' interests ended or the trust terminated on that date (§736.0103). The notices and accountings of §736.0813 go to the qualified beneficiaries. Guide: Notice to Trust Beneficiaries in Florida

Revocable trust

A trust the settlor can revoke or amend during life (§736.0602). It becomes irrevocable at the settlor's death, when the beneficiaries' rights begin; the ordinary Florida living trust is revocable. Guide: The Florida Revocable Living Trust, Explained

Irrevocable trust

A trust the settlor cannot revoke or amend, either because it was created that way or because the settlor has died. The trustee of an irrevocable trust owes the qualified beneficiaries the information and accounting duties of §736.0813. Guide: The Florida Irrevocable Trust, Explained

Trust instrument

The signed writing that creates the trust and states its terms, including any amendments (§736.0103). Its testamentary aspects must have been executed with the formalities of a will (§736.0403(2)(b)).

Pour-over will

A will that devises the testator's remaining probate property to the trustee of an existing trust, so that anything left outside the trust is carried into it after probate (§732.513). Guide: After You Sign Your Florida Will: What Happens Next

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, the trustee's powers, whether the trust is revocable, how cotrustees act, and how title is held (§736.1017). A recipient may rely on it without seeing the dispositive terms. Guide: Florida Trustee Powers (§736.0816)

Notice of trust

The short court filing a trustee makes when the settlor of a revocable trust dies, stating the settlor's name and date of death, the trust's title and date, and the trustee's name and address (§736.05055). It tells creditors and the court that the trust exists; it is not the notice to beneficiaries. Guide: Florida Notice of Trust (§736.05055)

Trust accounting

The reasonably understandable report a trustee gives each qualified beneficiary at least annually, on termination and on a change of trustee, showing the period's receipts and disbursements, gains and losses, assets on hand with values, liabilities, compensation, and the allocation between income and principal (§736.0813(1)(d), §736.08135). Guide: Florida Trust Accounting Requirements

Trust disclosure document

A trust accounting, or any other written report of the trustee, that adequately discloses a matter; it starts the limitations period of §736.1008 for that matter, and six-month bar when a limitation notice accompanies it. Guide: Florida Trust Accounting Requirements

Limitation notice

The trustee's written statement, sent with a trust disclosure document, that a claim for breach of trust on a matter the document adequately discloses may be barred unless brought within six months after receipt (§736.1008). Guide: Florida Trust Accounting Requirements

Fiduciary duty

The obligations a trustee owes the beneficiaries: to administer in good faith (§736.0801), with loyalty (§736.0802), impartiality (§736.0803), prudence (§736.0804), reasonable costs (§736.0805), care in delegation (§736.0807), control and protection of the property (§736.0809), records (§736.0810), and information (§736.0813). Guide: Florida Successor Trustee Duties After Death

Breach of trust

A violation by the trustee of a duty owed to a beneficiary. The remedies include compelling performance, enjoining the breach, surcharge, an accounting, reduced compensation and removal (§736.1001), with damages under §736.1002. Guide: Florida Trustee Impartiality and Disputes

Surcharge

A court's order that a trustee personally pay the trust for a loss caused by a breach, or disgorge a profit made from it (§736.1002).

Spendthrift provision

A term restraining both voluntary and involuntary transfer of a beneficiary's interest, so that a creditor cannot reach the interest before distribution (§736.0502), subject to the exceptions of §736.0503 such as child support. Guide: Types of Trusts in Florida

Discretionary distribution

A distribution the trust leaves to the trustee's judgment. However broad the discretion, the trustee exercises it in good faith and in accordance with the trust's terms and purposes (§736.0814); a creditor cannot compel it (§736.0504). Guide: Florida Trustee Powers (§736.0816)

Ascertainable standard

A standard for distributions tied to a beneficiary's health, education, maintenance or support. A trustee who is also a beneficiary may distribute to himself or herself only within such a standard unless the trust expressly provides otherwise (§736.0814(2)). Guide: Florida Trustee Powers (§736.0816)

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. Florida's principal and income rules in chapter 738 decide how each receipt and expense is allocated. Guide: Florida Trust Accounting Requirements

Per stirpes

A method of dividing a share among a deceased beneficiary's descendants by the branches of the family, each branch taking the share its ancestor would have taken; Florida's default for descendants (§732.104). Guide: Per Stirpes Calculator for Florida Trustees

Homestead

The Florida residence of a person and family, protected by the constitution from most creditors and from being devised away from a surviving spouse or minor child (§732.401, §732.4015). A revocable trust holding a homestead does not change those rules. Guide: Florida Homestead After Death: Descent, Devise & Trusts

Personal representative

Florida's term for the executor or administrator of a probate estate, appointed by the court and issued letters of administration; must be a Florida resident or a close relative of the decedent (§§733.302–733.304). Guide: Florida Probate, Explained

Probate

The court process that proves a will, appoints the personal representative, gives notice to creditors, and distributes property the decedent owned in an individual name without a beneficiary designation (chapter 733). Trust property and property passing by designation are outside it. Guide: Florida Probate, Explained

Summary administration

The shortened probate available when the probate assets are worth $75,000 or less, or the decedent has been dead more than two years (§735.201). Guide: Florida Probate, Explained

Creditor period

The time creditors have to bring claims against a decedent: two years after death whether or not probate was opened (§733.710), shortened to three months after the personal representative first publishes a notice to creditors, and 30 days after service on a known creditor (§733.702). Guide: Successor Trustee After a Death in Florida: First Steps

Reserve

The portion of trust property a trustee holds back at termination for debts, expenses and taxes before distributing the rest; §736.0817 has the trustee distribute expeditiously subject to a reasonable reserve. Guide: Florida Trust Termination: The Trustee's Closing Steps

Nonjudicial settlement agreement

A written agreement among the interested persons resolving a trust matter a court could approve — an accounting, a trustee's resignation or compensation, a modification — without a court proceeding, so long as it does not violate a material purpose of the trust (§736.0111). Guide: Florida Trustee Impartiality and Disputes

Decanting

A trustee's exercise of a power to invade principal by appointing the property to a second trust for the same beneficiaries, within the limits and with the notice §736.04117 requires.

Representation

The rules under which one person receives notice or gives consent for another — a parent for a minor child, a guardian for a ward, a person with a substantially identical interest — when no conflict of interest exists (§§736.0301–736.0306). Guide: Notice to Trust Beneficiaries in Florida

Cotrustee

One of two or more trustees serving together. Cotrustees who cannot agree act by majority; a cotrustee who records a dissent is generally not liable for the majority's act; each must prevent a serious breach by another (§736.0703). Guide: Florida Co-Trustees (§736.0703)

Prudent investor rule

The investment standard for Florida fiduciaries: invest and manage as a prudent investor would, considering the trust's purposes, terms and circumstances, with diversification unless the purposes are better served without it, and review the assets within a reasonable time after accepting (§518.11, applied by §736.0901). Guide: Prudent Trust Administration in Florida

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 at the settlor's death; the trust files Form 1041 under it and the trust account is opened with it. Guide: Successor Trustee After a Death in Florida: First Steps

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 for the beneficiary's own return; it accompanies the trust's Form 1041. Guide: Florida Trust Accounting Requirements

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. Guide: Successor Trustee After a Death in Florida: First Steps