Who Is the Grantor of a Trust?

1. What Does Grantor Mean in a Trust?

A grantor is the person who creates a trust and moves property into it. Florida’s trust code uses the word settlor and defines a settlor as a person, including a testator, who creates or contributes property to a trust. The code’s definitions use settlor everywhere, while banks, title companies and the IRS mostly say grantor. Some trust forms, especially ones written in other states, say trustor. All three words name the same person.

The definition has two halves, and both matter. A person who signs the trust document is a settlor. A person who later adds property to a trust someone else created is also a settlor, of the part that person added. A grandmother who deposits $50,000 into a trust her son set up for his children becomes a settlor of that $50,000.

The definition also includes a testator, meaning the person who signs a will. A trust written into a will, such as a trust holding a minor child’s inheritance until age 25, has the will’s maker as its settlor, even though the trust first exists at death. Our guide to the Florida testamentary trust covers that kind.

Florida law defines a person to include trusts, estates and corporations, so a grantor does not have to be a human being. A trustee who moves property from one trust into a new trust makes the first trust a contributor to the second.

2. Who Is the Grantor When Two People Fund a Trust?

Each of them is a grantor, for the property each one contributed. Florida’s definition says that when more than one person creates or contributes to a trust, each is the settlor of the portion attributable to that person’s contribution, unless another person has the power to revoke or withdraw that portion.

A married couple’s joint living trust is the common case. A husband puts in the brokerage account he owned before the marriage and a wife puts in her retirement savings, and together they deed in the house they own jointly. Florida treats the husband as settlor of the brokerage account, the wife as settlor of her savings, and both as settlors of the house.

The split by contribution has three practical effects under the code.

• Changing the trust. For property other than community property, each settlor may revoke or amend the trust as to that settlor’s own contribution. Our page on revoking or amending a trust covers the rule, including the trustee’s duty to tell the other settlor promptly when one of them makes a change alone.
• Creditors. A creditor of one settlor of an irrevocable trust can reach only that settlor’s interest in the portion that settlor contributed, and not the other settlor’s share. The rules on creditors and your own trust set that out.
• Records. Because the shares follow who contributed what, a joint trust should keep a schedule showing which spouse put in each asset. Without one, a question years later about whose property was whose turns into a dispute.

The label on the first page can still matter. A trust that names only one spouse as the settlor, even though both contributed, may be read to give that spouse alone the power to amend. The case at the end of this page turned on exactly that.

3. What Powers Does the Grantor Keep?

In a revocable trust the grantor keeps the power to change or cancel the trust at any time. Florida presumes a trust is revocable unless its terms expressly say it is irrevocable, for trusts signed after the trust code took effect in 2007. The grantor can amend by the method the trust describes, or, where the trust names no method, by a later will that refers to the trust or by any other method showing clear and convincing evidence of the grantor’s intent.

While a trust is revocable, Florida says the trustee’s duties are owed exclusively to the settlor. The trustee may follow the settlor’s directions even where they depart from the trust’s written terms, and the children who will inherit later have no right to see the accounts. Our page on who the trustee answers to explains the rule.

An irrevocable trust works the other way. Once property goes in, the grantor usually cannot take it back or change the beneficiaries, and the trustee answers to the beneficiaries. Our guide to the Florida irrevocable trust covers that kind, and our page on what a grantor trust is covers how the IRS taxes each.

4. Can the Grantor Also Be the Trustee and the Beneficiary?

Yes. Most Florida living trusts name the grantor as the first trustee and as the only beneficiary during the grantor’s lifetime, with children or others as the beneficiaries after death. A mother who signs a trust naming herself trustee, receiving everything during her life, and leaving the rest to her three children has filled all three roles at once, and the trust is valid.

The one combination Florida forbids is a single person who is both the sole trustee and the sole beneficiary. A trust requires that someone hold property for someone else, and the rules on when a Florida trust exists list that requirement. The living trust above avoids the problem because the children are beneficiaries too, even though their interest waits until the mother’s death. Our page on whether a trustee can be a beneficiary covers the same rule from the trustee’s side.

A grantor can also serve as trustee of an irrevocable trust, and Florida’s trust code does not prohibit it. The consequences come from elsewhere. A creditor of the grantor can reach the maximum amount the trustee could distribute to the grantor, so a grantor who is also a beneficiary of an irrevocable trust gets no creditor protection for that amount. And the powers a grantor keeps as trustee can pull the trust back into the grantor’s taxable estate. For those reasons most irrevocable trusts name someone other than the grantor as trustee. The roles of the trustee and the successor trustee are covered on their own pages.

5. Who Is the Grantor of a Trust After Death?

The grantor remains the grantor after death, and nobody takes over the role. What changes is the trust. A revocable trust becomes irrevocable at the grantor’s death, the grantor’s power to amend ends, and the successor trustee takes charge of the property under the trust’s instructions.

The grantor’s identity then does real work. Within 60 days of learning that the trust has become irrevocable, the trustee must tell the qualified beneficiaries that the trust exists, the identity of the settlor or settlors, their right to request a copy, and their right to accountings. The trustee also files a notice of trust with the court, naming the settlor and the settlor’s date of death. Our guides to what happens to a trust when the grantor dies and to Florida trust administration walk through the first months, and our page on the trustee’s duty to account covers the notices.

The grantor’s capacity at signing is also the first question in any challenge. A trust is created only if the settlor had capacity to create it, and the rules on capacity to create a trust set the standard.

What Does It Cost to Set Up a Trust With the Right Grantors?

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 will, the power of attorney, the health-care documents and a deed moving the home into the trust, is a flat fee from $3,200, and $4,500 for a couple. A joint trust from this office names both spouses as settlors and keeps a schedule of who contributed what. 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 who holds the power to amend is litigation, which we quote per matter rather than as a flat fee.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The couple with property from before the marriage. A husband and wife in their second marriage want one trust. Each puts in property owned before the wedding, and they deed in the house they bought together. The trust names both as settlors, lists each asset with the spouse who contributed it, and states what the survivor may change after the first death.

The grandmother who adds to her son’s trust. A grandmother wants to put $50,000 into the trust her son created for his children. Florida makes her a settlor of that $50,000, so the son’s trustee records the gift separately, and the grandmother’s lawyer checks that the trust’s terms are ones she is content to live under.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0103(4),(20),(21),(26) (beneficiary; revocable; settlor, including a testator and each contributor as to that contributor’s portion; trust instrument). Fla. Stat. §1.01(3) (person includes trusts and estates).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0402(1)(a),(e) (settlor’s capacity; the same person is not the sole trustee and sole beneficiary); §736.0601 (capacity to create a revocable trust).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0602(1),(2)(b)-(c),(3) (revocable unless expressly irrevocable; each settlor may revoke or amend as to that settlor’s contribution; notice to the other settlors; methods of amendment); §736.0603(1) (duties owed exclusively to the settlor while revocable).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0505(1)(a)-(b),(2)(a) (creditors of the settlor; a particular settlor’s creditor limited to that settlor’s contribution; holder of a withdrawal power treated as a settlor).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0813(1)(b),(4) (60-day notice identifying the settlor once the trust is irrevocable); §736.05055 (annotated) (notice of trust filed at the settlor’s death).
• Case retold below: Rollins v. Alvarez, 792 So. 2d 695 (Fla. 5th DCA 2001). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

The Trust Where Only One Spouse Was Called the Settlor

I have come across a case where the whole fight came down to a word on the first page of a trust, and the word was settlor.

In 1993 a married couple put most of what they owned into a single living trust, to care for themselves in old age and keep their affairs out of probate and guardianship. The wife was already in the early stages of dementia. The husband served as sole trustee, and after both deaths everything was to go to the wife’s two sons. The document called the husband alone the “Settlor,” which gave him alone the power to change it. In 1994 he cut the sons to half and gave the other half to a couple he trusted. In 1996 he signed a second amendment that named both spouses as settlors and said any later change needed both signatures and no change at all after the first death. In February 1998 a law firm in a different city from the one behind the 1996 amendment prepared a restated trust, and he signed it alone. The restatement mentioned the 1993 trust and the 1994 amendment and never mentioned 1996, and it left everything to two other women and excluded the sons by name. The wife died that July, and he died two days later.

The trial court gave the trust to the two women. The Fifth District reversed in 2001. The court said that everyone who contributes property is a settlor, but that the 1993 label had given the husband alone the power to amend. The 1996 amendment then gave that power away, because it required the wife’s signature, and she never signed anything after it. The court sent the case back to decide which document governed and who the beneficiaries were. In a footnote it added that if the wife was already incompetent in 1996, the amendment requiring her signature was a grave error.

My reading of that case is that every document made sense on the day it was signed, and nobody had the whole file. In reading the Florida cases on who counts as a trust’s grantor, I have a few take-home points.

The first is the label. Florida now treats each spouse as the settlor of what each contributed, whatever the first page says, but the words defining who may amend still control that power. Avoid a joint trust that names one spouse as settlor when both put property in, because the label invites exactly this argument.

The second is capacity. A clause that requires both spouses to sign any change is sensible for a healthy couple and a trap when one spouse is already declining, because the healthy spouse can no longer change anything. An owner in that position can keep a power to amend alone over the owner’s own contribution.

The third is the paper trail. The court assumed the 1998 lawyers would have dealt with the 1996 amendment had they known it existed. A restatement should list every prior document by date, and the trustee should keep the originals together.

Every joint trust I prepare, flat fee from $3,200 for a couple, names both spouses as settlors and says in one sentence what each may change alone. One limit is worth stating plainly. The appeals court sent the case back without deciding who inherited, so the opinion does not say whether the sons or the two women received the trust.

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.