What Happens to a Trust When the Grantor Dies?

1. Does a Revocable Trust Become Irrevocable Upon Death?

Yes. A revocable trust becomes irrevocable at the moment the grantor dies, because the only person who could change or cancel it is gone. From that moment the document is fixed, and the successor trustee has to follow it as written.

The death also changes who the trustee answers to. While the grantor was alive and competent, Florida law says the trustee’s duties ran to the grantor alone, and the children named in the trust had no right to see it or to demand an accounting. The page on who the trustee answers to covers that rule. Once the trust is irrevocable, the trustee answers to the qualified beneficiaries, meaning the people who receive distributions now or would receive them if the trust ended today.

A joint trust for a married couple works differently. When one spouse dies, the deceased spouse’s share usually becomes irrevocable and the survivor’s share stays revocable, if the document lets one spouse act alone. Our guide on changing a trust after a spouse dies walks through that split.

2. Who Manages a Trust After Death?

The successor trustee named in the trust manages it after death. In most living trusts the grantor served as the first trustee, and the document names a son, a daughter, a friend or a bank to take over, often with a second and third choice behind the first.

The named successor has a choice to make. A person accepts the trusteeship by signing an acceptance or simply by acting as trustee, and may decline instead. A successor who does not accept within a reasonable time is treated as having declined, and the next person on the list steps up. Our guides to the Florida successor trustee and to what a trustee is cover the duties that come with the job, and the trustee and executor comparison explains why the trustee is often the same person as the executor named in the will.

3. What Does the Trustee Do in the First 60 Days?

Florida gives the successor trustee 60 days to send the qualified beneficiaries two notices. The first notice says the trustee has accepted, with the trustee’s full name and address. The second says the trust exists and has become irrevocable, names the grantor, tells each beneficiary that they may request a copy of the trust, and tells them they are entitled to accountings. Both notices also state that the trustee’s conversations with the trustee’s own lawyer are privileged.

The trustee also files a notice of trust with the probate court in the county where the grantor lived. The notice is one page listing the grantor’s name and date of death, the trust’s title and date, and the trustee’s name and address. The filing matters because Florida makes a revocable trust answerable for the grantor’s debts and funeral costs when the probate estate cannot pay them, and the notice tells the court and any personal representative where the trust is.

In the same weeks the trustee usually does four practical things.

1. Orders several certified death certificates and gets a federal tax identification number for the trust.
2. Gives each bank and brokerage a death certificate and a certification of trust so the accounts move under the new trustee.
3. Secures the house, keeps the insurance in force and lists every asset with its date-of-death value.
4. Finds out whether anything was left in the grantor’s own name, because those assets will need probate.

After those notices the trustee owes each qualified beneficiary a trust accounting at least once a year and a final one at the end. Our Florida trust administration guide covers the full sequence, and the beneficiary rights guide covers the same process from the other side.

4. Does Having a Trust Avoid Probate in Florida?

A trust avoids probate for every asset the trust owned at death. A house deeded to the trustee, a brokerage account titled in the trust and a bank account in the trust’s name all pass under the trust with no court case. The trustee needs no letters from a judge to sell, transfer or distribute them.

Anything still in the grantor’s own name at death goes through probate, even with a signed trust in the drawer. The backup will that most trust plans include, called a pour-over will, sends those assets into the trust, but only after a probate court opens an estate. Our page on dying without funding your trust covers how much that costs and how long it takes.

The grantor’s creditors are the other reason a probate is sometimes opened on purpose. After the grantor dies, Florida bars creditors from suing the trust directly. A creditor has to file a claim in the probate estate, and only the personal representative can then certify to the trustee the amount the estate is short. When the estate publishes a notice to creditors, most claims are cut off 3 months after the first publication. When nobody opens probate, the claims period runs 2 years from the date of death.

5. Who Pays the Tax on a Grantor Trust When the Grantor Dies?

The grantor pays tax on the trust’s income up to the date of death, on the grantor’s final personal return. While the grantor was alive, a revocable trust was a grantor trust for federal income tax, so its interest, dividends and gains were reported on the grantor’s own return under the grantor’s Social Security number.

From the date of death the trust is a separate taxpayer. The trustee gets the trust its own tax identification number, and income the trust earns after death is reported on a trust income tax return, Form 1041. Income the trustee distributes to beneficiaries is generally taxed to the beneficiaries, who receive a Schedule K-1, and income the trust keeps is taxed to the trust. The trustee and the executor can also elect to treat the trust as part of the estate for income tax, which lets the trust use the estate’s fiscal year. Our guide to whether a trust needs a tax return covers the filing thresholds and due dates.

Florida has no estate tax and no inheritance tax. A federal estate tax return is required only for estates above the federal exemption, $15,000,000 per person in 2026, and a surviving spouse may file one anyway to keep the unused exemption of the first spouse to die, which our portability guide explains.

6. Does a Trust Get a Step Up in Basis When the Grantor Dies?

A revocable trust gets the step-up. Federal tax law resets the basis of property the grantor held in a revocable trust to its fair market value at death, the same as if the grantor had owned it outright. A house bought for $180,000 and worth $520,000 at death takes a $520,000 basis, so a sale for $520,000 a few months later produces no taxable gain.

An irrevocable trust gets the step-up only if its property is included in the grantor’s taxable estate. The IRS ruled in 2023 that assets in an irrevocable trust the grantor funded with a completed gift, and kept out of the estate, do not receive a new basis at the grantor’s death, even when the grantor paid the trust’s income tax during life. The step-up in basis guide covers the rules and the exceptions.

7. What Happens to an Irrevocable Trust When the Grantor Dies?

An irrevocable trust keeps running under its own terms when the grantor dies. The trust was already beyond the grantor’s power to change, so the death does not make it irrevocable a second time. What changes depends on how the trust was written.

• Payouts can start. A life insurance trust collects the death benefit, and many trusts give the grantor’s children their shares at the grantor’s death.
• Tax status can switch. A trust that was taxed to the grantor during life, often called an intentionally defective grantor trust, becomes a separate taxpayer at death and starts filing its own return.
• The trustee may already be in place. Many irrevocable trusts name a child or a professional as trustee from the start, and the duty to send notices and yearly accountings has run since the trust was signed.

8. What Happens to the House in a Trust After Death?

A house held in the trust stays in the trust, and the successor trustee can sell it, keep it or deed it to the beneficiary the trust names. The title company asks for the death certificate and a certification of trust, and the trustee signs the deed as trustee. Our guide on whether a trustee can sell the house covers that sale.

A Florida homestead is the exception. Florida law treats a homestead held in a revocable trust as if the grantor still owned it, and the Florida Constitution limits who can receive it when the grantor leaves a spouse or a minor child. If the trust leaves the homestead to anyone other than the spouse while a spouse survives, or to anyone at all while a minor child survives, the gift fails. Title then passes outside the trust at the moment of death, with a life estate for the surviving spouse and the rest to the grantor’s descendants, unless the spouse elects within 6 months to take a one-half share instead. The homestead in a revocable trust guide explains how a spousal waiver avoids that result.

What Does Trust Administration Cost?

Administering a Florida trust after a death, including the 60-day notices, the notice of trust, the accountings and the distribution, is a flat fee quoted at consult, because the work depends on what the trust owns and how many beneficiaries it has. A Complete Trust Plan for your own family, with the trust, the will, the power of attorney, the health-care documents and a deed funding the trust, is a flat fee from $3,200, and $4,500 for a couple. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. A dispute over the trust is litigation, which we quote per matter.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The daughter who finds the trust in a desk drawer. A widower dies with a living trust naming his daughter as successor trustee. She signs an acceptance, gets the trust a tax number, sends the 60-day notices to her two brothers and files a notice of trust with the county court. The house and the brokerage account were deeded and retitled into the trust years earlier, so nothing goes through probate.

The widow whose husband’s trust left the house to his sons. A husband’s trust leaves the Florida home to his sons from a first marriage. He dies survived by his second wife, who never signed a homestead waiver. The gift in the trust fails, the wife takes a life estate in the house, and she decides within 6 months whether to elect a one-half share instead.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0103 (annotated)(19),(20) (qualified beneficiary; revocable); §736.0603(1) (while revocable, duties owed exclusively to the settlor); §736.0701 (accepting or declining a trusteeship); §736.0813 (annotated)(1)(a)-(d),(4) (60-day notices, copy on request, annual accountings); §736.08135 (annotated) (contents of an accounting).
• Fla. Stat. §736.05055(1),(2),(4),(7) (notice of trust); §736.05053 (annotated)(1),(4) (trustee pays estate expenses on the personal representative’s certification); §733.707(3) (revocable trust liable when the estate is insufficient); §736.1014 (annotated)(1) (no direct creditor action against the trust after the settlor’s death); §733.702(1) (3 months after first publication); §733.710(1) (2 years after death); §736.0505 (annotated)(1)(a) (revocable trust reachable by the settlor’s creditors during life).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0403 (annotated)(2)(b) (testamentary aspects need will formalities); §732.513 (devises to a trustee under a pour-over will); §736.1017 (annotated) (certification of trust).
• Fla. Stat. §732.4015(1),(2) (homestead in a revocable trust treated as owned by the grantor); §732.401(1),(2) (life estate or elected one-half interest, election within 6 months); §736.1109 (annotated)(1)-(3) (homestead in revocable and testamentary trusts); Art. X, §4(c), Fla. Const.
• 26 U.S.C. §1014(a),(b)(2),(3),(9) (basis of property acquired from a decedent, including revocable trust property); Rev. Rul. 2023-2 (no basis adjustment for irrevocable grantor trust assets outside the gross estate); 26 U.S.C. §§645, 6109 (election to treat a qualified revocable trust as part of the estate; identification numbers). Tax information, not tax advice.
• Case retold below: Gneiser v. Adult Comprehensive Protection Services, Inc., 873 So. 2d 573 (Fla. 2d DCA 2004), applying former §§737.3054 and 737.3061, now §§736.05053 and 736.1014. Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

Why a Trustee Should Not Pay the Grantor’s Creditors Directly

I have come across a case where a son did everything a successor trustee is supposed to do and still ended up in an appeals court over $3,591.99.

His mother had signed a revocable trust in 1987. In 2001 a court found her incapacitated and appointed a professional guardian for her, and under the trust the son became successor trustee. A month before she died in August 2002, the guardianship court had the trust’s house sale proceeds, $10,023.99, placed in the trust lawyer’s account, to be paid out only on the court’s order. After she died nobody opened a probate estate. The court approved $6,432 from that money for her funeral, and when the son asked to pay the trust’s lawyer from the remaining $3,591.99, the guardian objected. The guardianship court instead ordered the money paid to the county for the court reporter and examining committee fees from the incapacity case, to the guardian for its unpaid fees, and to the guardian’s lawyers. The appeals court reversed. After the grantor’s death, her creditors had to present their claims in a probate estate, and only a personal representative could reach the trust to pay them.

In reviewing the Florida cases on creditors and revocable trusts, I have a few take-home points.

The first is the route. A creditor of the grantor cannot collect from the trustee directly after death, however reasonable the bill looks. The claim goes into probate, and the trustee pays only what a personal representative certifies in writing that the estate cannot cover. Avoid paying a grantor’s bills out of the trust on a phone call or a letter, because the trustee answers to the beneficiaries for every dollar that leaves.

The second is the clock. With no probate, the grantor’s creditors have 2 years from the date of death. A short probate with a published notice to creditors usually cuts that to about 3 months, which is why a trustee sometimes asks for an estate to be opened even when the trust holds everything.

The third is the trustee’s own costs. Florida pays the expenses of administering the trust, including the trustee’s lawyer, ahead of the grantor’s estate bills, and that priority protects a successor trustee who hires help.

An owner can make the successor’s job easier at the drafting stage by naming the same person as trustee and as personal representative, and every Complete Trust Plan I prepare does that where the family allows it. One limit is worth stating. The appeals court sent the case back without saying who was ultimately paid, so the opinion does not tell us how the $3,591.99 was finally spent.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. The case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on September 30, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.