Reviewed against the North Carolina Statutes on 2026-11-01. General information, not legal advice; the official text controls.
- North Carolina Uniform Trust Code
- Chapter 36C of the General Statutes (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-101) — North Carolina's trust code, applying to any express trust, private or charitable, testamentary or inter vivos, whether or not the trustee accounts to the clerk of superior court (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-102); the common law of trusts and principles of equity supplement it (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-106). Guide: North Carolina's Trust Code, Section by Section
- Trustee
- The person who holds and administers trust property under the terms of the trust — an original, additional or successor trustee, or a cotrustee, whether or not appointed or confirmed by a court (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-103(22)) — who takes office by accepting (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-7-701) and administers in good faith, in accordance with the trust's terms and purposes and the interests of the beneficiaries (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-801). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- Settlor
- A person, including a testator, who creates or contributes property to a trust; where more than one person creates or contributes, each is the settlor of the portion attributable to that person's contribution (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-103(17)). Guide: The North Carolina Revocable Living Trust, Explained
- Qualified beneficiary
- A living beneficiary who, on the date of determination, is a distributee or permissible distributee of trust income or principal, would be one if those distributees' interests ended without ending the trust, or would be one if the trust ended that day (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-103(15)); a charity expressly designated under a charitable trust, and a person appointed to enforce an animal or other noncharitable-purpose trust, have a qualified beneficiary's rights (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-110). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- Distributee and permissible distributee
- A beneficiary to whom the trust pays income or principal, or to whom the trustee may pay it — the qualified beneficiaries the trustee informs about the nature and amount of the trust property at reasonable intervals (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-813(a)(1)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- Duty to inform
- The trustee's duty to provide reasonably complete and accurate information about the nature and amount of the trust property, at reasonable intervals, to each qualified beneficiary who is a distributee or permissible distributee, and, on a qualified beneficiary's reasonable request, a copy of the trust instrument, that information and reasonable inspection of the trust's subject matter, accounts and documents (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-813(a)) — never a duty to tell a beneficiary in advance of a transaction (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-813(b)(1)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- Safe-harbor report
- A report sent at least annually and at the trust's termination that describes the trust property, liabilities, receipts and disbursements, including the source and amount of the trustee's compensation, and lists the assets with their market values; it discharges the interval-information duty for the matters it discloses, and no presumption arises against a trustee who sends none (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-813(b)(2)). North Carolina calls for no periodic report. Guide: North Carolina Trust Accounting Requirements
- Clerk of superior court
- The officer of each county with original jurisdiction over proceedings concerning the internal affairs of trusts — appointing and removing trustees, approving resignations, reviewing trustees' fees, settling accounts, bond and more — exclusive except for the questions of construction, beneficiaries and rights a party may move to the superior court (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-2-203). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Estate matter
- How the clerk of superior court dockets a contested trust proceeding: commenced as a civil action, the respondents summoned to answer within 20 days, the summons served under Rule 4 of the Rules of Civil Procedure (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-2-205(a)); an uncontested proceeding is a petition the clerk may decide summarily ((b)). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Accounting to the clerk
- A trustee files accounts with the clerk of superior court only where the trust instrument directs it or another law calls for it (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-2-208(a)) — notably a testamentary trustee under a will executed before January 1, 2004, unless the will provides otherwise (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-2-209(a)); such a trustee may not resign until a final account is filed and the court is satisfied (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-2-208(b)). Guide: North Carolina Trust Accounting Requirements
- Revocable trust
- A trust the settlor may revoke without the trustee's consent or a person with an adverse interest (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-103(16)); a trust under an instrument executed under the Chapter is revocable unless its terms expressly say it is irrevocable (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-6-602(a)). While it is revocable, the beneficiaries' rights are subject to the settlor's control and the trustee's duties are owed exclusively to the settlor (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-6-603). Guide: The North Carolina Revocable Living Trust, Explained
- Contest window
- The time to contest the validity of a trust that was revocable at the settlor's death: the earlier of three years after the death, or 120 days after the trustee sent the person a copy of the instrument and a notice, served under Rule 4, of the trust's existence, the trustee's name and address and the time allowed (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-6-604(a)); the trustee makes no distribution against a pending or noticed contest (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-6-604(b)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
- Declaration of validity before death
- A North Carolina settlor's own proceeding, in the superior court during the settlor's life, for a declaration that the settlor's revocable trust is valid (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-4C-2); the judgment binds the parties, who may not challenge the trust's validity once it becomes irrevocable (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-4C-5). Guide: The North Carolina Revocable Living Trust, Explained
- Claims against the settlor
- During the settlor's life, the property of a revocable trust is subject to the settlor's creditors' claims; after the death, the property of a trust revocable at the death answers for the settlor's creditors, the estate's administration costs, the funeral and the statutory allowances to the extent the probate estate is inadequate, subject to the settlor's right to direct the source (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-5-505(a)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
- Limited personal representative
- A person the clerk of superior court appoints only to give notice to the decedent's creditors without an estate administration — where the decedent left no probate personal property, the estate is collected by affidavit or summarily, or the like, and no administration is open; the trustee serving under the decedent's revocable trust may petition for the appointment (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 28A-29-1, 28A-29-2), and claims are then presented and barred as in an estate (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-29-4). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
- Notice to creditors
- The personal representative's notice, published once a week for four consecutive weeks, naming a day at least three months after the first publication by which claims are presented; a copy goes to each creditor actually known or reasonably ascertainable within 75 days after letters, and to the Division of Health Benefits where the decedent was receiving medical assistance (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-14-1). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Claims bar
- A claim against a decedent's estate that arose before the death is barred unless presented by the day the notice to creditors names or, for a creditor mailed the notice, within 90 days after the mailing if later; every such claim is barred if the first publication does not occur within three years after the death (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-19-3). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Personal representative
- The executor or administrator the clerk of superior court qualifies for a decedent's estate, who publishes and mails the notice to creditors (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-14-1), files the inventory within three months (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-20-1) and annual accounts (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-21-1); a nonresident serves only after appointing a resident process agent (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 28A-4-2(4)). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Collection by affidavit (small estate)
- Personal property worth no more than $20,000, net of liens — $30,000 for a surviving spouse entitled to it all — collected more than 30 days after the death on a filed affidavit, without letters (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 28A-25-1, 28A-25-1.1). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Medicaid death notice
- The notice a trustee gives the Division of Health Benefits of a death within 90 days of it, where the trust was established by a person who at death was receiving medical assistance, the trust was revocable at the death and the trustee knows of the assistance within the 90 days; not for a preneed funeral trust's trustee (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-818). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
- Medicaid estate recovery
- The Department of Health and Human Services' plan to recover from a recipient's estate the medical assistance paid for nursing-facility or other institutional care, or, from age 55, for the listed services, as a sixth-class creditor of the estate (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 108A-70.5). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
- Spendthrift provision
- A term restraining both the voluntary and the involuntary transfer of a beneficiary's interest — "spendthrift trust" or similar words suffice — under which the beneficiary may not transfer the interest and no creditor or assignee reaches it or a distribution before the beneficiary receives it (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-5-502); a child's support judgment is the one exception (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-5-503). Guide: North Carolina Asset Protection: The Basics
- Discretionary trust interest
- An interest subject to the trustee's discretion, with or without a standard — including sums the trustee decides are appropriate for support, education or maintenance; it is not transferable, not reachable by a creditor before receipt, and a creditor may not compel a distribution even where the discretion was abused (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-5-504). Guide: North Carolina Asset Protection: The Basics
- Power holder
- A person other than a trustee whom the trust's terms empower to direct or consent to the trustee's actions or to hold other powers over the trust — a fiduciary unless the terms make it a nonfiduciary (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 36C-8A-1, 36C-8A-3) — under North Carolina's Article 8A, not the Uniform Directed Trust Act. Guide: North Carolina Trustee Powers (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-815)
- Directed trustee
- A trustee acting under a power holder's direction, who acts in accordance with it and is not liable for complying unless compliance is intentional misconduct, and has no duty to monitor the power holder (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8A-4). Guide: North Carolina Trustee Powers (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-815)
- Decanting
- An authorized fiduciary's exercise of distributive discretion over a trust's principal to distribute it to a second trust, under the North Carolina Uniform Trust Decanting Act (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8B-1), on written notice at least 60 days before the effective date to the qualified beneficiaries and the others the statute lists (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8B-7), within the limits of N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8B-11. Guide: North Carolina Trustee Powers (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-8-815)
- Certification of trust
- The statement a trustee may give a person other than a beneficiary instead of the instrument — the trust's existence and date, the settlor's identity unless withheld, the acting trustee's identity and address, the powers, revocability, the cotrustees' signing authority, the taxpayer identification number and how title is taken — signed by any trustee (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-10-1013). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee: Accepting the Role
- Register of deeds
- The county office where a deed and, for a real property transaction, a certification of trust executed and acknowledged for registration are recorded (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-10-1013(j)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee: Accepting the Role
- Cotrustees
- Two or more trustees serving together: two act unanimously, and more than two who cannot agree may act by majority (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-7-703(a)); each takes part in each function unless unavailable or a function was properly delegated (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-7-703(c)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- Trustee's bond
- Security for the performance of the trustee's duties: given where the instrument was executed before January 1, 2006, unless its terms provide otherwise; after that date only where the terms call for one; or where a beneficiary's reasonable request or the court calls for one — never where the governing instrument directs otherwise; licensed banks and trust companies give none (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-7-702). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee: Accepting the Role
- Reasonable compensation
- Where the terms do not specify it, the compensation reasonable under the circumstances that Article 6 of Chapter 32 provides, weighed by eleven listed factors (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 36C-7-708, 32-54); paid without the clerk's prior approval only within four-tenths of one percent of the principal value on the last day of the trust accounting year, or after notice and 20 days (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 32-56). Guide: North Carolina Trust Accounting Requirements
- Trust accounting year
- The year whose last day fixes the principal value against which the four-tenths-of-one-percent line for paying compensation without the clerk's prior approval is measured (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 32-55, 32-56). Guide: North Carolina Trust Accounting Requirements
- Principal place of administration
- The trustee's usual place of business where the trust's records are kept, or the trustee's residence if it has none (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-103(13a)); a move to another state follows 60 days' written notice to the qualified beneficiaries, any one of whom may stop it by objecting (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-108(b)). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- Nonjudicial settlement agreement
- A binding agreement among the persons whose consent a court-approved settlement would need, limited to five matters — approving a report or accounting, directing or empowering the trustee, a trustee's resignation, appointment or compensation, moving the place of administration, and liability for those actions (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-1-111). Guide: North Carolina Trust Termination: A Trustee's Closing Steps
- Uneconomic trust
- A trust whose property totals less than $50,000, which its trustee may end after notice to the qualified beneficiaries where its value does not justify the cost of administration, unless the instrument excludes the section by specific reference (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-4-414(a)). Guide: North Carolina Trust Termination: A Trustee's Closing Steps
- Limitation of action against a trustee
- No proceeding for breach of trust may be commenced more than five years after the first of the trustee's removal, resignation or death, the end of the beneficiary's interest or the trust's termination; otherwise Chapter 1's limitations apply (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 36C-10-1005) — no period starts from a report. Guide: North Carolina Trust Accounting Requirements
- Total Net Assets
- The measure of the elective share: the decedent's probate property, property the decedent could revoke or withdraw — a revocable trust's included — survivorship and entireties interests, death benefits and certain transfers, less claims and allowances to others (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 30-3.2). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
- Year's allowance
- A surviving spouse's allowance valued at $60,000, and each child under 21's of $10,000, for a year's support, claimed by verified petition — within six months after letters where a personal representative is appointed (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 30-15, 30-17). Guide: The Home After a Death in North Carolina
- Divided at each generation
- North Carolina's intestate division among descendants: each surviving child's share is the property divided by the surviving children plus the deceased children who left descendants, and the shares not taken are combined and divided the same way at the next generation (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 29-16(a)) — not per stirpes. Guide: Per Stirpes Calculator for North Carolina Trustees
- Entireties property in a trust
- Real property spouses held by the entirety and conveyed to a joint trust, or in equal shares to their two trusts, keeps its protection from either spouse's separate creditors while they stay married, the property stays in trust and both are current beneficiaries (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 41-65). Guide: North Carolina Asset Protection: The Basics
- Voidable transfer
- A transfer made with intent to hinder, delay or defraud a creditor, or without reasonably equivalent value by a debtor in the listed circumstances, voidable under the Uniform Voidable Transactions Act; the claim is extinguished four years after the transfer, or one year after discovery for an intent claim (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 39-23.4, 39-23.9). Guide: North Carolina Asset Protection: The Basics
- Self-proved will
- A will made self-proved by the testator's acknowledgment and the witnesses' affidavits before an officer authorized to administer oaths, at signing or later, in the statute's form (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 31-11.6). Guide: After You Sign Your North Carolina Will: What Happens Next
- Caveat
- A challenge to a will's probate, entered before the clerk of superior court by an interested party at the application for probate or within three years after probate in common form (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 31-32). Guide: North Carolina Probate, Explained
- Health care power of attorney
- A writing by a person 18 or older with the capacity to make and communicate health care decisions, naming a competent adult who is not paid to provide the principal's care as health care agent (N.C. Gen. Stat. §§ 32A-17, 32A-18). Guide: North Carolina Powers of Attorney & Advance Directives
- Advance directive for a natural death (living will)
- A declaration, signed before two qualified witnesses and proved before a clerk or a notary, of a desire that life-prolonging measures not be used in the conditions it specifies (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 90-321). Guide: North Carolina Powers of Attorney & Advance Directives
- Practice of law
- Performing any legal service for another — the preparation of trust instruments and of inventories, accounts or reports of trustees named among them (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 84-2.1(a)); only active members of the North Carolina Bar may give legal advice or prepare legal documents for another (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 84-4). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee Duties After a Death
- North Carolina's security-breach law
- A business that owns or licenses North Carolina residents' personal information notifies affected persons of a security breach without unreasonable delay, with the contents the statute lists, and notifies the Attorney General's Consumer Protection Division — with the nationwide consumer reporting agencies where more than 1,000 persons are notified at once (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 75-65).
- No North Carolina estate or inheritance tax
- North Carolina levies no estate or inheritance tax on the estates of decedents dying on or after January 1, 2013 (S.L. 2013-316); a federal estate tax return may still be due, and the trust's income may be taxed by the State (N.C. Gen. Stat. § 105-160.2). Guide: North Carolina Successor Trustee After a Death: First Steps
General information about North Carolina law, not legal advice.