Les termes des trusts de Floride, définis

Vérifié par rapport aux Florida Statutes le 2026-09-09. Information générale, pas un avis juridique ; le texte officiel fait foi.

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: Après la signature de votre trust de Floride : la suite

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: Devoirs du trustee successeur en Floride après un décès

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: Trustee successeur en Floride : accepter le rôle

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: Avis aux bénéficiaires d'un trust en Floride

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: Le trust révocable entre vifs de Floride, expliqué

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: Le trust irrévocable de Floride, expliqué

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: Après la signature de votre testament de Floride : la suite

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: Pouvoirs du trustee en Floride (§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: Avis de trust en Floride (§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: Exigences de comptabilité des trusts en Floride

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: Exigences de comptabilité des trusts en Floride

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: Exigences de comptabilité des trusts en Floride

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: Devoirs du trustee successeur en Floride après un décès

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: Impartialité du trustee et litiges en Floride

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: Les types de trusts en Floride

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: Pouvoirs du trustee en Floride (§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: Pouvoirs du trustee en Floride (§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: Exigences de comptabilité des trusts en Floride

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: Calculateur per stirpes pour trustees de Floride

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: Le homestead de Floride après un décès : dévolution, legs et 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: L'homologation en Floride, expliquée

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: L'homologation en Floride, expliquée

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: L'homologation en Floride, expliquée

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: Trustee successeur après un décès en Floride : premières étapes

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: Clôture d'un trust en Floride : les étapes finales du trustee

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: Impartialité du trustee et litiges en Floride

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: Avis aux bénéficiaires d'un trust en Floride

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: Co-trustees en Floride (§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: Administration prudente des trusts en Floride

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: Trustee successeur après un décès en Floride : premières étapes

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: Exigences de comptabilité des trusts en Floride

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: Trustee successeur après un décès en Floride : premières étapes