Will.com / Living trust / Texas
TX · Revocable Living Trust
Make your Texas living trust.
Skip probate, keep your estate private, and stay in control while you're alive. Legally valid in Texas once signed under the Texas signing rules below. Free to create, or add secure online document storage with the $29/year subscription.
Texas living trust requirements
Special notes for Texas
- Married couples may consider a joint revocable trust holding their community property. Placing community property in the trust does not by itself make it separate property; that takes a partition or exchange agreement in writing and signed by both spouses (Tex. Fam. Code §§4.102, 4.104).
How it works
- 1
Answer a few questions
About your assets, trustees, and beneficiaries.
- 2
Download your trust
A complete, personalized revocable living trust, formatted for Texas.
- 3
Sign and fund
Sign the trust. Fund it by transferring assets into its name (notarization strongly recommended if real estate is involved).
Joint or individual
Married couples can make one joint Texas living trust that both spouses sign, in place of an individual one. The questionnaire asks which you want, and Will.com generates either.
Signing a Texas living trust
No formal execution requirements beyond settlor signature; notarization strongly recommended when funding real property
Proving your Texas trust without handing it over
When a bank, brokerage, title company, insurer, or transfer agent asks to see your trust, Texas law lets your trustee give them a short certification of trust instead (Tex. Prop. Code §114.086). It states that the trust exists, who the trustee is, and what the trustee may do. It leaves out who inherits and what each person receives, so your beneficiaries stay private.
Will.com generates the Texas Certification of Trust alongside your trust, built to the contents that section requires. Sign it in front of the same notary, at the same sitting as the trust, then give out copies of the certification rather than the trust itself.
Community property in Texas
Texas is a community-property state under Tex. Fam. Code §3.002 et seq.. Assets you and your spouse acquire during the marriage are presumed to be community property, owned 50/50, regardless of whose name is on the title. Adds an Article VII: Community Property Provisions covering classification of community vs. separate property, the surviving spouse's one-half interest, federal IRC §1014(b)(6) double-stepped-up basis, and record-keeping for traced contributions.
Whether community property keeps its community character inside a revocable trust depends on Texas law and on what the trust document says, including whether both spouses sign it as settlors.
Funding Texas real estate into the trust
To transfer Texas real estate into your trust, you sign a new deed conveying the property from yourself to yourself as trustee, then record the deed with the County Clerk of the county where the property is located. The trust does not control real estate unless the deed transfer is recorded.
Two tiers, both private
Free: nothing leaves your browser. No account, no storage. Clear your answers whenever.
Subscription ($29/year): zero-knowledge encrypted storage. We store the ciphertext; only you hold the key. Edit and update as life changes.
Ready to create your trust?
Whatever you decide today, your family won’t have to guess. Start free, or save it to your account for $29 a year.