What Is an Inter Vivos Trust?

1. What Does Inter Vivos Mean?

Inter vivos is Latin for between the living. A trust is inter vivos when its maker creates it during life, as opposed to a testamentary trust, which is written into a will and comes into existence only after death and probate. An inter vivos gift is a lifetime gift for the same reason.

Florida’s trust code recognizes three ways to create a trust. The first is a transfer of property to a trustee during the maker’s lifetime, or by will at death. The second is a declaration by an owner that the owner now holds identified property as trustee, which is how most living trusts start, with the maker as the first trustee. The third is the exercise of a power of appointment in favor of a trustee. The first two, done during life, produce an inter vivos trust. Our page on the three ways to create a trust covers the statute.

The person who creates the trust is called the settlor in Florida’s statute, and also the grantor or trustmaker. The code treats a person who writes a trust into a will as a settlor too, so the same rules on trustees and beneficiaries govern both kinds once they exist.

2. Is an Inter Vivos Trust Revocable or Irrevocable?

An inter vivos trust can be either, and the document says which. Florida supplies the default. A trust signed since the Florida Trust Code took effect in 2007 is revocable unless its terms expressly say it is irrevocable, so a document that is silent can be changed or cancelled by its maker.

A revocable inter vivos trust is the ordinary revocable living trust, used to avoid probate and plan for incapacity. An irrevocable inter vivos trust is signed during life for a purpose that requires giving up control, such as a life insurance trust, a Medicaid asset protection trust or a dynasty trust. Our guide to the Florida irrevocable trust covers that family.

3. What Is a Revocable Inter Vivos Trust?

A revocable inter vivos trust is a trust you create during your life, fund with your own property, and keep the power to change or cancel. In a typical Florida trust you hold every role at once. You are the settlor who made it, the trustee who manages it, and the beneficiary who uses the property while you live. Florida law says that while a trust is revocable, the trustee’s duties are owed only to the settlor, so nobody else has a right to accountings or a say in how you spend.

Two events change that. If you lose capacity, the successor trustee you named steps in to pay your bills without a guardianship. When you die, the trust becomes irrevocable, and the successor trustee distributes the property to your beneficiaries without probate, owing them notices within 60 days and annual accountings. Our guides to the successor trustee and what a trustee does cover both roles.

A revocable trust avoids probate only for what is actually in it. A house still in your own name at death goes through probate under your backup will, whatever the trust says, which is why the deed and the account forms matter as much as the trust. Our page on what assets should not be in a revocable trust covers what goes in and what stays out.

4. How Is an Inter Vivos Trust Different From a Testamentary Trust?

The difference is when the trust starts and whether probate stands in front of it. An inter vivos trust starts the day you sign and fund it. A testamentary trust is a set of trust instructions inside your will, and it has no property until the probate court admits the will and the personal representative hands the assets over, which in Florida commonly takes six months to a year.

A testamentary trust costs less today and more later, because the probate it waits for is paid by your family. Our page on the Florida testamentary trust covers when one is still the right choice, usually for a younger parent whose main asset is life insurance, and our will versus living trust guide compares the two plans as a whole.

5. What Does Florida Require for an Inter Vivos Trust?

Florida creates a trust only when five conditions are met. The maker has capacity, which for a revocable trust is the same capacity needed to make a will. The maker intends to create a trust. The trust has a beneficiary who can be identified now or later, or is a charitable, pet or other permitted purpose trust. The trustee has duties to perform. And the same person is not both the sole trustee and the sole beneficiary, which is why a living trust always names someone to take after you.

One more rule decides whether the trust works at your death. For a revocable trust signed by a Florida resident, the provisions that give property away at or after death are invalid unless the trust was signed with the formalities of a Florida will. A Florida will is signed at the end, in front of two witnesses who sign too. A trust signed in front of a notary alone can hold your property while you live and still fail to pass it to your children. The rule on trust witness requirements covers the text.

Two further points matter for newcomers and landowners. A trust signed while you lived in another state is valid in Florida if it complied with the law where it was signed or where you lived at the time, so a snowbird’s New York trust usually still works. And a trust of Florida real estate must be in writing and signed, which a deed into the trust supplies. The guide to setting up a living trust in Florida walks through the signing.

6. How Is an Inter Vivos Trust Taxed?

A revocable inter vivos trust changes nothing on your tax return while you live. Federal law treats a person who can take back a trust’s property as its owner for income tax, so the trust uses your Social Security number and its income goes on your Form 1040. Our page on whether your trust needs a tax return covers the details, and after your death the rules for beneficiaries are on whether beneficiaries pay taxes on trust distributions.

An irrevocable inter vivos trust is taxed according to its terms. Some are written so the maker keeps paying the income tax, and others file their own returns. Funding an irrevocable trust for someone else is usually a gift, which uses part of the $19,000 annual exclusion per recipient in 2026 or the lifetime exemption, and our gift tax calculator shows the numbers.

What Does an Inter Vivos Trust Cost in Florida?

A revocable trust drafted on its own is a flat fee from $2,400, and $3,200 for a couple. The Complete Trust Plan, which adds the pour-over will, the power of attorney, the health-care documents and a deed putting your home into the trust, is a flat fee from $3,200, and $4,500 for a couple. A will with a testamentary trust for minors is a flat fee from $299. Irrevocable trusts are a flat fee quoted at consult, because the scope moves with the structure. Recording and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date. Our page on what a living trust costs in Florida compares the options.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The couple who moved from New Jersey. A couple signed a joint revocable trust in New Jersey in 2015 and moved to Naples in 2024. Florida recognizes the trust because it was valid where they signed it. The couple still sign a Florida deed to put the Naples home into it and update the successor trustees.

The father of two young children. A 38-year-old father owns a small house and a $1,000,000 term life policy. He weighs a will with a testamentary trust for $299 against a living trust. He chooses the living trust and names it as the policy beneficiary, so the insurance money is managed for his children without waiting on probate.

The widow who signed at the bank. A widow downloaded a living trust form and signed it in front of a bank notary. Her children learn at her death that the form had no witnesses. The parts of the trust that leave her property to them fail, and the property passes under her will or Florida’s rules for dying without one.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0103 (annotated)(20), (21) (revocable; settlor includes a testator); §736.0401 (methods of creating a trust, including transfer during the settlor’s lifetime and declaration by the owner); §736.0402 (annotated)(1) (requirements for creation).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0403(1) (a trust not created by will is valid if it complies with the law where executed or of the settlor’s domicile); §736.0403(2)(a) (trusts of land, §689.05); §736.0403(2)(b) (testamentary aspects of a Florida domiciliary’s revocable trust invalid without will formalities); §732.502(1) (a will is signed at the end in the presence of two attesting witnesses).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0601 (annotated) (capacity to create a revocable trust is the capacity to make a will); §736.0602 (annotated)(1) (revocable unless the terms expressly provide otherwise, for instruments executed after the Code’s effective date); §736.0603 (annotated)(1) (while revocable, the trustee’s duties are owed exclusively to the settlor).
• 26 U.S.C. §676(a) (grantor treated as owner where a power to revest title exists). Retrieved September 30, 2026. Gift tax annual exclusion of $19,000 per recipient for 2026.
• Case retold below: Zuckerman v. Alter, 615 So. 2d 661 (Fla. 1993). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026. The case’s holding on execution formalities has since been displaced by §736.0403(2)(b) for revocable trusts of Florida domiciliaries.

The Form Trust That Survived by One Vote, and Would Not Survive Today

What I have not seen a form do is tell its signer how many witnesses Florida wants. I also track how the law on signing trusts has moved, because the answer has changed within living memory.

In 1982 a woman named Celia Kahn filled out a standardized trust form herself, declaring that she held a brokerage account as trustee for her nephew Jack. The account held most of what she owned. She had the form notarized and did not have it witnessed (perhaps nobody told her a trust needed more than a notary). Her will left her household goods to the same nephew and everything else to two nieces. When she died in 1986, the nieces sued, arguing that the trust was really a will in disguise and failed for lack of two witnesses, which would have sent the brokerage account to them. The trial court agreed with the nieces. The appeals court and then the Florida Supreme Court, in 1993, held for the nephew, but only by a vote of four justices to three, and the dissenters said the legislature had meant to require will formalities all along. The legislature later wrote that requirement into Florida’s trust statutes for revocable trusts signed by Florida residents.

My reading of that case is that the nephew kept the account because of when she signed, not because of how. In reviewing Florida’s rules on signing a trust, I have a few take-home points.

The first is witnesses. A Florida resident’s revocable trust needs two witnesses who watch the signing and sign themselves, exactly like a will. A notary alone is not enough for the gifts at death.

The second is the form. Avoid a fill-in trust form from a website or an office supply store unless someone checks the signing against Florida’s rules, because the form cannot tell you what it is missing.

The third is the family. The fight in that case was between relatives the woman loved, over a document she believed was finished. An owner can make the signing far harder to attack by having the trust signed before two witnesses and a notary in one sitting, and every trust I prepare, flat fee from $2,400, is signed that way. One limit is worth stating plainly. The opinion does not say how much the account held or where Celia Kahn was living when she signed, so it cannot tell you what the nieces stood to gain.

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.