Revocable trust

Also called: Revocable living trust.

Where the statute uses it: Minn. Stat. § 501C.0602(a)

What it means

Two sections carry the word, and they answer different questions. Section 501C.0103(n) says what “revocable” describes: a trust the settlor can undo without needing the trustee’s consent or the consent of a person holding an adverse interest. Section 501C.0602 says who gets to do the undoing, and Minnesota’s answer is not the national default.

(a) Unless the terms of a trust expressly provide that the trust is revocable, the settlor may not revoke or amend the trust.

Silence does not produce a revocable trust in Minnesota. It produces a trust the settlor cannot revoke or amend. The 2025 legislature reworked § 501C.0602, but it left paragraph (a) exactly as it stood; what changed was paragraph (e), on when an agent under a power of attorney may exercise the settlor’s powers.

Where the terms do make the trust revocable, paragraph (c) supplies the method: substantial compliance with any method the trust provides, or — where the trust provides none, or provides one that is not expressly made exclusive — another writing manifesting clear and convincing evidence of the settlor’s intent, and for an oral trust, any other method manifesting that evidence.

Where the word shows up

In the article of the trust instrument reserving the power to amend, which is the provision to read before assuming anything can be changed. In § 501C.0813(a), whose first sentence runs to the qualified beneficiaries of an irrevocable trust.

Revocability is not creditor-neutral, and § 501C.0505 is where that shows. Whether or not the terms contain a spendthrift provision, during the settlor’s lifetime the property of a revocable trust is subject to claims of the settlor’s creditors. After the settlor’s death, and subject to the settlor’s right to direct the source from which liabilities are paid, the property of a trust that was revocable at death is subject to those claims, to administration costs, funeral expenses, and statutory allowances, to the extent the probate estate is inadequate.