Explaining the Law, Empowering You

Living Trusts can be created as either Revocable Living Trusts or Irrevocable Living Trusts. One of the main differences between the two is that revocation is only possible with Revocable Living Trusts. Revocation is the legal name given to the termination or cancellation of an agreement.

Provided you are not incapacitated, you can generally revoke or terminate a Revocable Living Trust at any time by sending a ‘notice of revocation of a Living Trust’ to the trustee(s) of the Living Trust. This is a written legal notice signed by the person who created the Living Trust (the ‘grantor’) stating that he or she is terminating the Living Trust and requiring that the trust assets be transferred back to him or her.

In order to revoke a living trust, you must do the following:-

1. Firstly, you must, in your capacity as grantor, prepare and serve a notice of revocation on the trustee of the Revocable Living Trust (which is generally the grantor). The notice will inform the trustee that the Revocable Living Trust is terminated and will call for the return of the trust assets to the grantor.
   
   
2. Secondly, you must arrange for the transfer of legal title in the trust assets to be transferred from the Living Trust back to the grantor personally.

It’s important to note that with a Joint Living Trust or an AB Living Trust, notwithstanding that there are normally two co-grantors, either co-grantor alone is legally entitled to terminate the Living Trust by service of a notice of revocation.

Finally, when terminating a Revocable Living Trust it’s important to ensure that any beneficiary designations which you have made in favor of the Living Trust are amended. In this respect, you will need to consider items such as pay-on-death accounts, transfer on death securities, life insurance, etc.

For more information on Revocable Living Trusts, read some of the other Revocable Living Trust articles on this website.

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