Revocable Living Trust.

In plain English

A revocable living trust is a legal arrangement you set up while you are alive to hold your assets, with instructions for managing them now and distributing them after you die. Revocable means you can change it, add to it, or cancel it entirely at any time while you are mentally able. You typically act as your own trustee while alive, then name a successor trustee to take over when you die or become unable to manage things. Its main appeal is that assets properly placed in the trust usually skip probate, the public court process for settling an estate. The rules that make a trust valid and how it interacts with state law are state-specific, so a licensed attorney governs the details.

01Why it matters

It can spare your family months of court, public records, and legal fees after you die, and it sets up someone you trust to manage your money if you become too ill to do it yourself.

02The math, step by step

A homeowner retitles their house and brokerage account into a revocable living trust, naming their adult daughter as successor trustee. When the homeowner dies, the daughter distributes the assets under the trust's terms without a probate case, and the homeowner could have rewritten the trust at any point beforehand.

03What this is NOT