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Oregon Revocable Living Trust
Support GuideOregon39 min read

Oregon Revocable Living Trust

An Oregon revocable living trust runs on ORS chapter 130, the Oregon Uniform Trust Code. What creates one, how to fund it, and the pour over will beside it.

By Settled Editorial

An Oregon revocable living trust is a document you sign while you are alive that holds title to property you retitle into it, with you serving as your own trustee. ORS chapter 130, the Oregon Uniform Trust Code, sets the rules. Property you actually move into it passes to the people you named without a court case.

This guide covers creation, funding and the pour over will you sign beside the trust. Every rule below was read on the Oregon Legislature's 2025 Edition of the Oregon Revised Statutes, which prints each section's amendment history inline. This is general information about Oregon law, not advice about your own documents. Ask a licensed Oregon attorney to read anything you plan to sign.

Start with what the alternative costs, because the honest comparison is between money you spend now and a court file your family opens later. ORS 21.170(1) sets the fee to open an Oregon probate case at $278 where the estate is worth less than $50,000, $591 from $50,000 to just under $1 million, $882 from $1 million to just under $10 million, and $1,176 above that. ORS 21.170(2) charges again for each annual and final accounting, and ORS 21.170(4) charges anyone filing an appearance the ORS 21.135 fee of $281.

Oregon Runs on the Uniform Trust Code

ORS 130.001 names the chapter: this chapter may be cited as the Oregon Uniform Trust Code. Oregon enacted it in 2005 Oregon Laws chapter 348, and the chapter prints a uniform act number in front of most catchlines. ORS 130.505 reads as UTC 602. Revocation or amendment of revocable trust, and that prefix belongs to the statute rather than to a publisher, so quote it when you cite the section.

ORS 130.005(1) applies the chapter to express trusts, whether charitable or noncharitable. Your living trust is an express trust. Subsection (2) then lists eighteen arrangements the chapter does not reach, and reading that list saves an argument later: an employee benefit arrangement or an individual retirement account, a 529 savings account under ORS 178.300 to 178.360, a lawyer's or property manager's client trust account, a cemetery endowment care fund, public funds, an escrow or single transaction fund, a trust created by a deposit agreement with a financial institution, a business trust under ORS 128.560, a voting trust under ORS 60.254, an account under the Oregon Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, a trust deed under ORS 86.705, and a resulting or constructive trust.

ORS 130.910(1)(a) applies the chapter to all trusts created before, on or after January 1, 2006, and subsection (1)(c) applies its rules of construction to instruments executed before that date unless the terms of the trust show a clear contrary intent. An Oregon trust signed in 1998 is governed by chapter 130 today.

The vocabulary is worth ten seconds. ORS 130.010(18) defines a settlor as a person, including a testator, who creates a trust or contributes property to it, and splits the role where more than one person contributes. ORS 130.010(16) defines a revocable trust as one the settlor can revoke without the consent of the trustee or a person holding an adverse interest. ORS 130.010(22) defines a trust instrument as an instrument executed by a settlor that contains terms of the trust, including any amendments. ORS 130.010(21) then makes the terms of a trust wider than the paper: the manifestation of the settlor's intent as expressed in the trust instrument or as may be established by other admissible evidence.

Three roles run every living trust, and you fill all three while you are alive.

Settlor. The person who creates the trust and moves property into it. That is you.

Trustee. The person who holds and manages the trust property. Most people name themselves first, so daily life does not change.

Beneficiary. The person the trust benefits. You are the current beneficiary during your life, and the people you name take what is left.

ORS 130.020(1) then says the chapter governs a trustee's duties and powers except as the terms of the trust provide otherwise, and subsection (3) lists fourteen things your document cannot change. Among them: the ORS 130.150 to 130.190 creation requirements, the trustee's duty to act in good faith, the requirement that the trust be for the benefit of its beneficiaries, the court's power to modify or terminate a trust, the creditor rules at ORS 130.300 to 130.325, the court's power over a bond and over an unreasonable trustee fee, the ORS 130.835 limit on exculpation clauses, every period of limitation for starting a proceeding, and the venue and jurisdiction sections. A form that promises to write around any of those is promising something Oregon does not allow.

What Creates an Oregon Trust

ORS 130.150(1) lists five methods. A living trust uses one of the first two: transfer of property to another person as trustee during your lifetime, or a declaration by the owner of property that the owner holds identifiable property as trustee. The third is the exercise of a power of appointment in favor of a trustee, the fourth is an agent acting under a power of attorney that expressly grants authority to create the trust, and the fifth runs on a statute or judgment.

ORS 130.155(1) then sets five requirements. A trust is created only if:

  1. The settlor has capacity to create a trust.
  2. The settlor indicates an intention to create the trust.
  3. The trust has a definite beneficiary, or is a charitable trust, a trust for the care of an animal under ORS 130.185, a noncharitable purpose trust under ORS 130.190, or a stewardship trust under ORS 130.193.
  4. The trustee has duties to perform.
  5. The same person is not the sole trustee and sole beneficiary.

Item five stops one arrangement and no others. Serving as your own trustee and your own current beneficiary works, because the remainder beneficiaries you name hold beneficial interests too. Subsection (2) adds that a beneficiary counts as definite if the person can be ascertained when the trust is created or at any time afterward, subject to any applicable rule against perpetuities. An animal gets its own section, walked through in the Oregon pet trusts guide.

Capacity is measured against a will. ORS 130.500(1) says a person who has capacity to make a will has capacity to create, amend, revoke or add property to a revocable trust, or to direct the actions of its trustee. ORS 112.225 sets that standard: any person 18 years of age or older, or who has been lawfully married, or who has been emancipated under ORS 419B.550 to 419B.558, and who is of sound mind. Read Oregon will requirements for the rest of that test, and Oregon will contests for the attack a challenger would bring.

Two more sections close the creation set. ORS 130.165 allows a trust only to the extent its purposes are lawful, not contrary to public policy and possible to achieve, and requires the trust and its terms to benefit the beneficiaries. ORS 130.175 makes a trust void to the extent its creation was induced by fraud, duress or undue influence.

Put it in writing. ORS 130.180 says that except as a statute outside the chapter requires, a trust need not be evidenced by a trust instrument, and then requires the creation and the terms of an oral trust to be established by clear and convincing evidence. That is a case nobody wants their family to argue after a funeral.

Here is the point most Oregon articles skip. Chapter 130 asks for no witnesses, no notarization and no registration. The word registration appears once in the entire chapter, in ORS 130.185(4), where it excuses a pet trust trustee from filings. Sign in front of a notary anyway, because the deed that funds the trust has to be acknowledged or proved before the county clerk will record it under ORS 205.130(2)(a).

If you signed a trust in another state and then moved here, ORS 130.160 validates a trust not created by will if its creation complied with the law of the place the instrument was executed, or of the place where the settlor was domiciled, had a place of abode or was a national, or where a trustee was domiciled or had a place of business, or where any trust property was located. ORS 130.030 then reads the meaning and effect of its terms under the law the document designates, unless that designation runs against a strong public policy of the jurisdiction with the most significant relationship to the question.

Oregon Presumes Your Trust Is Revocable

ORS 130.505(1) sets the default: unless the terms of a trust expressly provide that the trust is irrevocable, the settlor may revoke or amend the trust. Silence leaves the power with you, so an Oregon document that never prints the word revocable is revocable anyway. Check the clause before you sign, because a trust drafted for another state's rule may carry wording Oregon does not need.

One dated exception sits in the note printed under the section. 2005 Oregon Laws chapter 348, section 47 says ORS 130.505(1) does not apply to a trust created under an instrument executed before January 1, 2006. If your trust predates that day and says nothing about revocation, the presumption does not rescue it, and the answer runs through older law and probably through a lawyer.

Subsection (3) sets out how you make a change. You may revoke or amend by compliance in substance with a method the terms of the trust provide. Where the trust provides no method, you may use any other method that manifests clear and convincing evidence of your intent, with one carve-out written into ORS 130.505(3)(b): executing a will or codicil does not count. So unless your own trust document names a will as a way to change it, a sentence in your will does not amend an Oregon trust.

Four limits sit in the same section.

  • An agent is boxed in. Subsection (5) lets an agent or attorney-in-fact exercise your powers over revocation, amendment or distribution only to the extent the terms of the trust expressly authorize it. Authority written into your power of attorney document alone is not enough here, so the trust has to name the power. The Oregon power of attorney guide covers the rest of that form.
  • A conservator needs the court. Subsection (6) lets your conservator, or your guardian where no conservator has been appointed, exercise those powers only with the approval of the court supervising the case. See Oregon guardianship and conservatorship.
  • More than one settlor splits the powers. Subsection (2) lets each settlor revoke or amend as to the portion attributable to that settlor's contribution, treats community property differently, and makes the trustee promptly notify the other settlors when fewer than all of them act.
  • A trustee who does not know is protected. Subsection (7) shields a trustee who acts on the assumption that the trust had not been amended or revoked, so tell your trustee the day you sign an amendment. Subsection (4) then requires the trustee to deliver the trust property as you direct once you revoke.

ORS 130.500(2) keeps a trust inside the revocable-trust construction rules at ORS 130.520 to 130.575 even after it can no longer be revoked, where the block came from the settlor becoming financially incapable or from an event the trust itself named.

Three of those construction rules answer questions people ask about a life change.

  • Marriage does not revoke your trust. ORS 130.530 says that unless the trust instrument provides otherwise, a trust is not revoked by the settlor's marriage after the instrument is executed. A will behaves differently: ORS 112.305 revokes a will on the testator's subsequent marriage where the testator is survived by a spouse, unless one of its listed exceptions applies. Signing a trust and a will and then marrying leaves you with one document intact and one that may not be.
  • Divorce cuts the former spouse out. ORS 130.535(1) revokes all provisions in favor of a former spouse, all powers of appointment exercisable by that person, and any provision naming that person as trustee. Subsection (2) then reads the trust as though the former spouse had predeceased the settlor.
  • A child born later has a share, sometimes. ORS 130.555 gives a pretermitted child, born or adopted after the instrument was executed and not mentioned by name or class, a share worked out by whether you had living children when you signed and whether you provided for them.

Funding Is the Whole Job

A trust holds only what you actually move into it. Anything left in your own name at death travels through the Oregon probate process no matter how well the trust reads. Funding is where most living trusts fail, and it is clerical work rather than legal work.

The house

Sign a deed from yourself as an individual to yourself as trustee, have it acknowledged, then record it. Oregon records with the county clerk, not a county recorder. ORS 205.130(1) gives the county clerk custody of the files and records of deeds and mortgages of real property, and subsection (2)(a) requires the clerk to record deeds and other interests affecting title when properly acknowledged or proved.

Record it promptly. ORS 93.640(1) makes an unrecorded conveyance void as against a later purchaser in good faith and for valuable consideration whose own instrument is filed for record first.

Budget the counter charge rather than a tax. ORS 205.320(1)(d)(A) charges $5 for each page recorded, with a minimum of $5, and defines a page as one side of a sheet no more than 14 inches long and 8 1/2 inches wide. ORS 205.323(1) adds three more fees on the same instrument: $1, $10 and $60. A one-page deed costs $76 at the counter, and a two-page deed costs $81.

Oregon also bars most local transfer taxes. ORS 306.815(1) forbids a city, county, district, other political subdivision or municipal corporation from imposing a tax or fee on the transfer of a fee estate in real property, or measured by the consideration paid on such a transfer. Subsections (3), (4) and (5) carry the exceptions, the widest being subsection (4), which leaves alone any such tax whose ordinance was in effect and operative on March 31, 1997.

A married couple's house is a special case

ORS 93.180(1)(b) gives spouses married to each other a tenancy by the entirety by default, unless the conveyance clearly and expressly declares otherwise. That form carries creditor protection, and ORS 130.518 says the protection survives the move into a trust.

Read the section closely. Real property that spouses held as tenants by the entirety and then conveyed to the trustee of their joint revocable trust, or of a separate revocable trust for each of them, keeps the same immunity from the claims of one spouse's creditors, on three conditions: the spouses remain married to each other, the property continues to be held in trust, and both spouses are beneficiaries of the trust or trusts. Subsection (2) lets the protection be waived as to a named creditor or specific property, by the trustee acting under an express trust provision or with both spouses' written consent.

Read the date before relying on it. The note printed under the section says section 7 of 2021 Oregon Laws chapter 272 applies to tenancy by the entirety property conveyed to a trustee on or after January 1, 2022. A conveyance made before that day does not get the shield.

Two other Oregon title rules bear on funding. ORS 93.180(3) abolishes joint tenancy in real property outside the ORS 93.190 trustee case, so the words joint tenants in an Oregon deed create a tenancy in common. And ORS 93.180(1)(c) sends a conveyance to a trustee or personal representative to ORS 93.190 instead, where subsection (1) creates a joint tenancy in two or more trustees unless the instrument expressly declares that they take as tenants in common. ORS 130.615(2) then says a vacancy in the trusteeship need not be filled while one or more cotrustees remain in office.

Bank and brokerage accounts

Ask each bank or brokerage to retitle the account in the name of the trust. You rarely hand over the trust document itself. ORS 130.860(1) lets a person who is not a beneficiary and who proposes to deal with the trustee require all trustees to execute a certification of trust, and subsection (2) lists the ten items it carries: that the trust exists and the date the instrument was executed, the identity of the settlor, the identity and address of the currently acting trustee, the powers of the trustee, whether the trust is revocable and who may revoke it, whether any power to modify or amend it exists and who holds it, the authority of cotrustees to sign, the last four digits of the settlor's Social Security number or the trust's employer identification number, the manner of taking title to trust property, and the jurisdiction under whose laws the trust was established.

The rest of the section is written for the person on the counter side.

  • Subsection (3) has all the trustees sign it, and subsection (4) has it state that the trust has not been revoked, modified or amended in a way that would make the certification wrong.
  • Subsection (5) says the certification need not contain the dispositive terms of the trust. Who gets what stays private.
  • Subsection (6) stops a recipient from requiring the entire trust instrument, while letting it ask for excerpts that name the trustee and confer the power to act in the pending transaction.
  • Subsection (7) lets the recipient add facts reasonably related to the administration, ask for signatures from settlors or beneficiaries, and use its own standard form.
  • Subsection (9)(a) protects a person who acts in reliance without actual knowledge that the certification is wrong, and (9)(b) makes the transaction enforceable against the trust.
  • Subsection (8) lets the certification name the successor trustee and the circumstances under which that person takes over, which is what a bank reads when your successor walks in.

One honest caveat. ORS 130.860 carries no damages remedy against a person who asks for the whole trust document anyway, and subsection (12) says a person's failure to demand or refusal to rely solely on a certification costs that person nothing under ORS 130.855 and supports no inference about good faith. Expect a few counters to ask for more, and expect the argument to be commercial rather than legal.

Retirement accounts and life insurance

Leave an IRA, a 401(k), a pension and a life insurance policy on their own beneficiary forms. Retitling the account itself can create a tax event, and ORS 130.005(2)(a) puts employee benefit arrangements and individual retirement accounts outside chapter 130 anyway.

Naming your trustee as the beneficiary of a death benefit is a different question, and Oregon writes rules for it. ORS 130.150(2)(a) lets a trustee be named as beneficiary of any death benefits and confirms that a trust is valid even where it holds nothing but the right to receive them. ORS 130.150(2)(c) then says death benefits received by the trustee are not subject to the debts of the person who made the designation, or to inheritance or estate taxes, to any greater extent than if they had been payable to the beneficiaries named in the trust. Subsection (3)(a) defines death benefits broadly enough to reach life insurance proceeds, annuity and endowment payments, and pension, retirement, stock bonus and profit-sharing plan funds. Ask an advisor before making the trust the beneficiary of a retirement account, since the payout schedule turns on who inherits.

Online accounts

Digital property follows its own act, ORS chapter 119, the Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act. ORS 119.042 to 119.052 give a trustee its own path to content and to a catalog of communications. Read Oregon digital assets after death before assuming the trust document covers your inbox.

While You Are Alive, the Trustee Answers Only to You

ORS 130.510(1) puts it plainly. While the settlor of a revocable trust is alive, the rights of the beneficiaries are subject to the control of the settlor, and the duties of the trustee are owed exclusively to the settlor. Beneficiaries other than the settlor have no right to receive notice, information or reports under the chapter. Your children get no accounting and no vote while you are here.

Subsection (2) extends the same rule to property subject to a power of withdrawal, running the trustee's duties to the holder of that power during the period it may be exercised.

The reporting duties in ORS 130.710 confirm it from the other direction. ORS 130.020(3)(h) and (3)(i) make the notice and report duties mandatory only for an irrevocable trust, and even there ORS 130.020(4) lets the settlor waive or modify them, or name someone to receive the reports on the beneficiaries' behalf. ORS 130.710(2)(c) starts the clock within a reasonable time after the trustee learns that a formerly revocable trust has become irrevocable, whether by the death of the settlor or otherwise.

The Pour Over Will

Sign a will beside the trust. A pour over will sends anything still in your own name at death to the trustee, so one set of instructions governs instead of two.

Oregon authorizes it at ORS 112.265, whose catchline reads Testamentary additions to trusts. Subsection (1) allows a devise to the trustee of a trust, regardless of the existence, size or character of the trust corpus, where three things hold: the trust is established or will be established by the testator, by the testator with others, or by other persons; the trust is identified in the testator's will; and the terms of the trust are set out in a written instrument other than a will, or in the valid last will of a person who predeceased the testator.

Five rules follow, and they answer the questions people actually ask.

Sequence is flexible in Oregon. Subsection (1)(c) accepts a trust instrument executed before, concurrently with, or after the execution of the testator's will. Oregon does not make the trust come first, so a will signed in March and a trust signed in September still work together. Where a template insists on a signing order, that order comes from the template rather than from ORS 112.265.

An empty trust still catches the pour over. Subsection (2) lets the trust be funded during your lifetime or at death by the devise itself, and expressly covers a funded or unfunded life insurance trust even where the trustor kept the ownership rights in the policies.

Amending the trust later is fine. Subsection (3) says the devise is not invalid because the trust is amendable or revocable, or both, or because it was amended after the will was executed or after the testator died.

The property joins the trust rather than becoming a court supervised trust. Subsection (4) says that unless the will provides otherwise, the devised property is not held under a testamentary trust of the testator. It becomes part of the trust it was given to and is administered under that instrument, including amendments made before or after the testator's death.

Revoking the trust kills the devise. Subsection (5) says that unless the will provides otherwise, a revocation or termination of the trust before the testator's death causes the devise to lapse. Tear up an Oregon trust, leave the old pour over will in a drawer, and that property drops into the residue of the will or into Oregon intestate succession where the will cannot absorb it. Rewrite both documents on the same day.

Subsection (6) confirms the section is not the only way to make a devise to a trustee, and subsection (7) asks courts to construe it toward uniformity with the states that enacted the same provision.

A pour over will is still a will, so it has to clear ORS 112.235(1). The will must be in writing. In the presence of each witness the testator signs it, directs somebody else to sign the testator's name and that signer's own name, or acknowledges a signature already made. At least two witnesses must each see the signing, hear the acknowledgment or hear or observe the direction, and then attest by signing their own names within a reasonable time before the testator's death. Subsection (2) treats a witness signature on an affidavit executed at the same time as the will as a signature by that witness on the will, where it is needed to prove due execution.

One line in that section deserves a full stop. ORS 112.235(4) says that as used in the section and in ORS 112.238, writing does not include an electronic record, document or image. The subsection itself dates from 2015 Oregon Laws chapter 387, section 11; 2025 Oregon Laws chapter 34, section 3 extended it to reach ORS 112.238, and the act carries an effective date of January 1, 2026 that applies to a writing executed by a decedent dying on or after that day. ORS 112.238 is Oregon's harmless error section, the route a court uses to honor a document that missed the formalities. After that amendment it can no longer rescue an electronic file. Print your pour over will and sign it on paper.

The Affidavit Route Oregon Reserves for a Pour Over Estate

Here is an Oregon advantage almost nobody publishes. ORS 114.510(1)(a) normally caps the simple estate affidavit at $75,000 of personal property other than manufactured homes and $200,000 of real property and manufactured homes.

ORS 114.510(1)(b) writes a second route for a testate estate. Where the decedent died with a will, the $75,000 and $200,000 caps are measured only against property specifically devised to devisees other than the trustee, and the balance of the estate has to be devised to the trustee of a trust of which the decedent was a settlor, as defined in ORS 130.010, that came into existence before the decedent's date of death.

Read what that does. A pour over will feeding a trust you settled in life can carry an estate past the ordinary caps and still qualify for an affidavit rather than a full appointment, so long as the specific devises to other people stay under the two figures. The Oregon simple estate affidavit guide walks the filing itself.

What an Oregon Revocable Trust Does Not Do

It does not stop creditors. ORS 130.315(1) opens by saying it applies whether or not the terms of the trust contain a spendthrift provision, and carves out only the ORS 130.518 entirety case. Paragraph (1)(a) then subjects the property of a revocable trust to the claims of the settlor's creditors during the settlor's lifetime. Subsection (1)(c) then says that where a trust was revocable at the settlor's death, its property becomes subject to creditors' claims under ORS 130.350 to 130.450, subject to the settlor's right to direct the priority of sources from which liabilities are paid. ORS 130.020(3)(e) makes those creditor rules mandatory, so the document cannot write around them.

The trust-side claims machinery mirrors probate and costs money to run. ORS 130.355(1) lets a trustee petition the probate court to determine the claims of the settlor's creditors, and subsection (2) has the clerk collect the ORS 21.135 plaintiff's filing fee of $281 in advance. ORS 130.360 then bars claims after the later of four months from the first publication of notice, or 30 days after a notice mailed to a known claimant. ORS 130.365 requires publication once in each of three consecutive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the petition was filed, and ORS 130.370(1) gives the trustee three months to make reasonably diligent efforts to investigate the settlor's financial records and affairs and to identify each claimant, then to deliver or mail a notice, including one to the Department of Human Services and the Oregon Health Authority. Compare that against Oregon creditor claims in a probate case before assuming the trust is quieter.

It saves no Oregon estate tax. ORS 118.010(2) imposes the tax on a transfer of the property of every resident decedent, and of a nonresident decedent whose estate includes Oregon real property or tangible personal property. Subsection (4) opens its rate table at $1,000,000 at 10 percent and tops out at 16 percent above $9,500,000. ORS 118.160(1)(c) requires an estate tax return whenever the value of the gross estate is $1 million or more, for a death on or after January 1, 2012. Property you can revoke sits inside those figures. Read the federal estate tax in Oregon for the other layer, and Oregon step-up in basis for what the heirs inherit for income tax.

It does not cut out your spouse. Oregon computes the elective share against an augmented estate. ORS 114.630(1)(b) folds in the nonprobate estate described in ORS 114.660 and ORS 114.665, and ORS 114.665(4) reaches any property the decedent could have acquired immediately before death by exercising a revocation. A funded revocable trust is exactly that. ORS 114.605(2) scales the share from 5 percent of the augmented estate under two years of marriage to 33 percent at 15 years or more, ORS 114.610 gives the spouse nine months to claim it, and ORS 114.705 makes recipients of the nonprobate estate contribute their proportional share. See Oregon surviving spouse rights.

It does not close the door on a contest. ORS 130.515(1) gives a person the earlier of three years after the settlor's death, or four months after the trustee sends that person a copy of the trust instrument together with notice of the trust's existence, the trustee's name and address and the time allowed. Sending that packet is how a trustee turns three years into four months. The will runs on a different clock: ORS 113.075(3) requires a contest to be commenced before the later of four months after the ORS 113.145 information was delivered or mailed to that person, or four months after the date of publication of notice to interested persons. Oregon will contests works that deadline in full.

Trust Versus Will in Oregon

QuestionRevocable living trustWill alone
Avoids probateYes, for funded assetsNo
Public court recordNoYes, once filed
Works if you lose capacityYes, the successor trustee steps inNo
Fee to open at deathNone by itself, $281 for a trust claims petition under ORS 130.355(2)$278 to $1,176 by estate value, ORS 21.170(1)
Contest window3 years, or 4 months after the trustee's notice, ORS 130.515(1)4 months after the ORS 113.145 information or the published notice, ORS 113.075(3)
Default revocabilityRevocable unless the document says otherwise, ORS 130.505(1)Revocable until death
Revoked by your later marriageNo, ORS 130.530Usually yes, ORS 112.305
Amendable by a later willNo, unless the trust itself says so, ORS 130.505(3)(b)Yes, ORS 112.285(1)
Signing formalitiesNone in ORS chapter 130Two witnesses, paper only, ORS 112.235
Cost to signHigherLower
UpkeepRetitle every new assetNone until death

After the Settlor Dies

The trust becomes irrevocable and the successor trustee takes over. ORS 130.615(1)(e) treats the death of a trustee as a vacancy, subsection (2) requires the vacancy to be filled where no trustee remains, and subsection (3) fills it in order of priority: the person the terms of the trust designate, then a person appointed by unanimous agreement of the qualified beneficiaries, then a person the court appoints. Naming a backup keeps the choice out of a courtroom.

ORS 130.600(1) has that person accept the trusteeship by complying in substance with a method the trust provides, or by knowingly accepting delivery of the trust property, exercising powers or otherwise indicating acceptance. Subsection (3) lets a designated trustee preserve trust property without accepting, so long as a rejection goes out within a reasonable time.

Notice follows. ORS 130.710(2)(b) has the trustee notify all qualified beneficiaries of the acceptance and of the trustee's name, address and telephone number within a reasonable time. Subsection (2)(c) then requires notice of the trust's existence, the identity of the settlor, the right to request a copy of the instrument and the right to a trustee's report. ORS 130.710(3)(a) sends a trustee report at least annually and on termination, to the permissible distributees of income or principal and to any other qualified beneficiary who asks. The report lists trust property and liabilities, shows market values where feasible, and reflects all receipts and disbursements including the source and amount of the trustee's own compensation.

ORS 130.515(2) lets the trustee distribute under the terms of the trust without liability, unless the trustee knows of a pending contest or a person has given written notice of a possible one and files it within 60 days. Subsection (3) makes a beneficiary of a trust later found invalid liable to return the distribution. The full sequence sits in the Oregon trust administration guide.

When an Oregon Trust Earns Its Cost

A trust here does its best work on a plan with structure: minor or disabled beneficiaries, real property in more than one state, a blended family, a business that has to keep running, or a wish to keep the whole arrangement out of a public court file. It also carries you through incapacity without a conservatorship, which no will does.

For a single house and a simple beneficiary list, price it against a recorded transfer on death deed. Oregon adopted the Uniform Real Property Transfer on Death Act at ORS 93.948 to 93.979 and prints the deed form inside ORS 93.975, so the paperwork is one page and $76 at the county clerk. Read the Oregon transfer on death deed and the other ways to avoid Oregon probate before restructuring your ownership, and put the trust question in its place alongside the will, a power of attorney and an advance directive in Oregon estate planning basics.

Take the answer to an Oregon attorney rather than to a form site. A trust that never gets funded costs money and changes nothing.

Frequently Asked Questions

Does an Oregon living trust have to say it is revocable?

No. ORS 130.505(1) says that unless the terms of a trust expressly provide that the trust is irrevocable, the settlor may revoke or amend the trust. Silence leaves you the power to change it, so an Oregon trust that never prints the word revocable is revocable anyway. One dated exception sits in the note printed under that section: 2005 Oregon Laws chapter 348, section 47 says subsection (1) does not apply to a trust created under an instrument executed before January 1, 2006.

Do you have to register a living trust in Oregon?

No. ORS chapter 130 carries no registration provision and no filing requirement for a living trust, and the word registration appears once in the whole chapter, in ORS 130.185(4), where it excuses a pet trust trustee from filings. Nothing goes to a courthouse while you are alive. The one document that does get filed is the deed that moves real property into the trust, and that goes to the county clerk rather than to a court.

Can I be my own trustee and my own beneficiary in Oregon?

Yes, so long as somebody else holds a beneficial interest. ORS 130.155(1)(e) says a trust is created only if the same person is not the sole trustee and sole beneficiary. Naming remainder beneficiaries, which nearly every living trust does, clears that test on the day you sign while you serve as your own trustee. ORS 130.510(1) then makes the trustee's duties run exclusively to you while you are alive.

Does an Oregon pour over will have to be signed after the trust?

No. ORS 112.265(1)(c) accepts a trust whose terms sit in a written instrument other than a will executed before, concurrently with, or after the execution of the will. ORS 112.265(3) adds that the devise stays good even though the trust is amendable or revocable, or was amended after the will was signed or after the testator died. ORS 112.265(5) carries the trap: unless the will says otherwise, revoking or terminating the trust before death makes the devise lapse.

Does an Oregon revocable trust stop creditors or cut estate tax?

Neither. ORS 130.315(1)(a) subjects the property of a revocable trust to the settlor's creditors during the settlor's life, and ORS 130.315(1)(c) subjects it to creditors' claims under ORS 130.350 to 130.450 once the settlor dies. On tax, ORS 118.010(4) opens the Oregon estate tax table at $1,000,000 at a 10 percent rate, and ORS 118.160(1)(c) requires a return whenever the gross estate reaches $1 million for a death on or after January 1, 2012. A trust changes neither figure.

Can an Oregon surviving spouse reach property held in a revocable trust?

Yes. ORS 114.630(1)(b) folds the nonprobate estate into the augmented estate the elective share is measured against, and ORS 114.665(4) reaches any property the decedent could have acquired immediately before death by exercising a revocation. That language captures a funded revocable trust. ORS 114.605(2) scales the share from 5 percent under two years of marriage to 33 percent at 15 years or more, ORS 114.610 gives the spouse nine months, and ORS 114.705 makes recipients of the nonprobate estate contribute.

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Information current as of August 25, 2026

Settled Estate is not a law firm, and this content is for informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Probate laws and procedures in Oregon can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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