Testamentary Trust
Also called: will trust, trust under will
Updated June 7, 2026
What a testamentary trust is used for
Testamentary trusts are commonly used to hold assets for beneficiaries who cannot yet manage them — minor children, for example, or a beneficiary with a disability. The will specifies when the trust distributes funds (at a certain age, for education, in the trustee's discretion) and who serves as trustee.
Testamentary trust versus living trust
A living trust is funded during your lifetime and sidesteps probate entirely. A testamentary trust is created by a will and comes into being through probate — meaning it requires court involvement and becomes a public record. The living trust is generally more private and faster; the testamentary trust is simpler to set up during life because there is no separate trust document to fund or maintain.
Related terms
- Living Trust — A living trust is a legal arrangement created during a person's lifetime in which they transfer ownership of their assets to the trust — typically naming themselves as the initial trustee — to be managed for their benefit while alive and distributed to named beneficiaries when they die, all without going through probate. Because the trust, not the individual, holds the assets, those assets pass directly to beneficiaries outside of the probate process.
- Trustee — A trustee is the person or institution responsible for managing the assets held inside a trust, in accordance with the trust document and in the interest of the beneficiaries. The trustee holds legal title to the trust property but must use it only for the purposes the trust specifies.
- Successor Trustee — A successor trustee is the person or institution named in a trust document to step in and manage the trust when the original trustee can no longer serve — typically because of death, incapacity, or resignation. In a revocable living trust where the grantor serves as their own initial trustee, the successor trustee is the person who carries out the trust's instructions after the grantor's death.
- Beneficiary — A beneficiary is a person or organization designated to receive an asset or benefit from a will, trust, life insurance policy, retirement account, or other arrangement. Being named a beneficiary gives someone a legal right to receive that specific asset — often outside of probate — when the owner passes.
- Executor — An executor is the person named in a will to carry out its instructions — gathering the deceased's assets, paying debts and taxes, and distributing what remains to the beneficiaries. The executor is accountable to the probate court and must act in the interest of the estate, not their own.
Legatus Vault keeps your wills, trusts, and estate documents in one secure place and releases them — only when the time comes, and only after careful verification — to the people you choose.