Settlor

Also called: Grantor, Trustor.

Where the statute uses it: Minn. Stat. § 501C.0103(o)

What it means

The settlor is whoever put the property in. Minnesota’s trust code fixes the word by contribution, not by title: a person who creates a trust is a settlor, and so is a person who contributes property to a trust someone else created. A testator counts, which is how a trust created inside a will has a settlor at all.

The second sentence of the definition does the work most documents ignore. Two people who fund one trust are not joint settlors of the whole. Each is the settlor of the share traceable to that person’s own contribution, except to the extent somebody else holds the power to revoke or withdraw that share. The statute states the exception and stops: it does not say who becomes the settlor of the excepted portion.

"Settlor" means a person, including a testator, who creates or contributes property to a trust. If more than one person creates or contributes property to a trust, each person is a settlor of the portion of the trust property attributable to that person's contribution except to the extent another person has the power to revoke or withdraw that portion.

Where the word shows up

On the first page of a trust instrument, in the recital naming who is creating the trust. On a certificate of trust used for real property, where § 501C.1013, subd. 2, requires the name of each settlor. In § 501C.0602, which is the section that says whether the settlor can undo any of it.

“Grantor” and “trustor” name the same role. The Treasury’s trust publication lists them together — “The person creating the trust, called a grantor, trustor, settlor, or maker” — and Minnesota’s own chapter uses “grantor” for that person at § 501C.1113, subd. 5(b). A sales presentation that treats the three as separate positions is describing one person three times. The label that changes the outcome is not settlor: it is whether the settlor is also the trustee, and whether the settlor is also a beneficiary.