A trust is one of the most useful tools a West Jordan family has. It decides who looks after your property if you cannot, who receives it when you die, and how quickly they get it. Done properly, it keeps your estate out of the Utah probate courts and keeps your affairs private.

Jeremy Eveland is a trust attorney serving West Jordan, Utah and the wider Salt Lake Valley. This page explains what trusts do under Utah law, which type suits which situation, and what to expect when you set one up.

What a Trust Actually Does

A trust is a legal arrangement with three roles. The settlor creates it and puts property into it. The trustee manages that property under the rules the settlor wrote. The beneficiaries receive the benefit of it. In most West Jordan family trusts, one person fills the first two roles during their lifetime: you create the trust, you remain the trustee, and you carry on using your own property exactly as before.

The difference shows up when you die or lose capacity. Property held in your own name has to go through probate before anyone can touch it. Property held in a trust does not. Your successor trustee steps in and follows your written instructions, without a court file, without a public record, and usually without a lawyer running the estate for a year.

Trusts in Utah are governed by the Utah Uniform Trust Code, which the Legislature recodified in 2025. The Utah Code and the Utah State Courts self-help pages set out the framework, but the drafting is where the outcome is decided.

Types of Trusts West Jordan Families Use

Revocable Living Trusts

This is the ordinary family trust. You keep full control, you can change it or cancel it at any time, and it becomes fixed only when you die. It avoids probate on everything you transfer into it, and it sets out who manages your affairs if you become unable to. For most West Jordan homeowners with a house, retirement accounts and a bank balance, this is the right starting point.

Irrevocable Trusts

Here you give up the right to change the terms, and in return the property is treated as no longer yours. That matters for asset protection and for long-term care planning. It is a serious step and it is not reversible, so it should follow a proper conversation about what you are trying to protect and from whom.

Testamentary Trusts

A trust written inside a will, which comes into existence only after death. It is often used to hold money for children until they reach an age you choose. It does not avoid probate, because the will has to be probated first, but it does control how and when a young beneficiary receives money.

Special Needs Trusts

If a beneficiary receives needs-based public benefits, an outright inheritance can disqualify them. A special needs trust holds the money for their benefit without it counting as their own resource. The drafting has to be exact.

Asset Protection Trusts

Utah is one of the states that allows a self-settled asset protection trust, which lets a settlor be a discretionary beneficiary of their own irrevocable trust. It is a specialist tool with strict requirements and timing rules, and it does nothing about a claim that already exists. See the asset protection page for how this fits with the rest of a plan.

Wills and Trusts: Which One You Need

People often ask whether they need a will or a trust. In practice most West Jordan clients end up with both.

A will directs what happens to anything still in your own name at death, names a personal representative, and names guardians for minor children. It only takes effect through probate. A trust handles the property you transferred into it, without probate. When a trust is in place, the will is usually written as a short pour-over will: it catches anything you forgot to transfer and sends it into the trust.

If your estate is small and simple, a will on its own may be enough. Utah allows a small estate affidavit where the whole estate is worth less than $100,000 and at least 30 days have passed since the death, which can avoid a full probate. Once you own a home in West Jordan, that threshold is behind you and a trust usually earns its cost.

Funding the Trust Is the Part People Skip

A signed trust document that owns nothing does nothing. Funding means retitling assets into the trust’s name: a new deed for the house, changed ownership on bank and brokerage accounts, updated beneficiary designations, and assignment of business interests.

This is where most home-made and online trusts fail. The paperwork exists, the family assumes probate is avoided, and then the house turns out to still be in the deceased’s own name and the estate goes through probate anyway. Every trust set up through this office is funded as part of the engagement, and you get a written record of what was moved and what was deliberately left out.

Trust Administration and Trustee Duties

Being named trustee is a real job with real liability. A Utah trustee has to follow the trust terms, keep trust property separate from their own, treat beneficiaries even-handedly, keep records, and account to the beneficiaries. Getting it wrong is a personal exposure.

Common work at this stage includes taking control of assets, obtaining a tax identification number for the trust, notifying beneficiaries, paying final debts and taxes, and making distributions in the right order. Serving as trustee for the first time is much easier with someone to check the steps against.

When Trusts Go Wrong

Trust disputes in Utah usually come down to a handful of issues: a trustee who will not account, a trust amendment made late in life under pressure, unequal treatment of siblings, or a trust that was never funded. Most of these are resolved without a trial, but they are resolved faster when someone reads the document carefully at the start. This office handles both sides of trust and estate disputes.

Why Use a West Jordan Trust Attorney

Trust work is state-specific. Deeds have to be recorded correctly with Salt Lake County, Utah’s rules on trustee duties and creditor claims differ from neighbouring states, and probate here runs through the Third District Court. A local attorney who does this work regularly in Salt Lake County will get the transfer paperwork right the first time, and is available for a meeting rather than a call centre queue.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does a trust avoid probate in Utah?

Yes, for the assets that were actually transferred into it. Anything left in your own name still goes through probate, which is why funding matters as much as drafting.

Do I lose control of my property?

Not with a revocable living trust. You stay the trustee, you can sell or spend anything in it, and you can revoke the trust entirely. Control changes only with an irrevocable trust, and that is the point of one.

Does a trust save estate tax?

Utah has no state estate tax or inheritance tax. Federal estate tax only affects estates well above most family levels. For nearly every West Jordan family, a trust is about avoiding probate, keeping matters private and planning for incapacity, not about tax.

Can I write my own trust?

You can, and the office regularly fixes the results. The document is only half of it. The other half is the deed, the beneficiary designations and the retitling, and those are what usually go wrong.

How long does it take?

A straightforward revocable trust package for a West Jordan family usually takes two to four weeks from the first meeting to signing, plus the funding work afterwards.

Talk to a West Jordan Trust Attorney

Jeremy Eveland works with West Jordan families on trusts, wills and estate planning. The office is at 8833 S Redwood Rd # A, West Jordan, UT 84088, with a second office at 17 North State Street, Lindon, UT 84042. Call (801) 613-1472 or use the contact page to arrange a consultation. Office hours are Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m.

Related pages: Estate Planning Lawyer West Jordan · Probate Law West Jordan · Business Lawyer West Jordan