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Utah Trust Administration
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Utah Trust Administration

Utah trust administration under Title 75B, Chapter 2: the two 60-day notices, trustee reports, creditor and Medicaid notice, and distribution.

By Settled Editorial

Utah trust administration is what a successor trustee does after the person who made the trust dies. Two 60-day clocks start at once under Utah Code 75B-2-811(2): one to tell the qualified beneficiaries you accepted the job, one to tell them the trust has become irrevocable. Most of the rest happens outside any courtroom.

The rules live in Title 75B, Chapter 2, which Utah captions the Uniform Trust Code. Read this beside how the trust was set up if you want the settlor's side of it. This page is general information about Utah law rather than advice about one trust, so check your own dates against the trust document itself or with a licensed Utah attorney.

The Trust Code Moved in 2025, and Old Citations Point at Nothing

Chapter 310 of the 2025 General Session renumbered and amended the entire Utah trust code out of Title 75, Chapter 7 and into Title 75B, Chapter 2, effective May 7, 2025. Every section in the new chapter carries that same history line.

Title 75 no longer publishes a Chapter 7 at all. So a bank form, a checklist or an older article that cites 75-7-811 for the duty to inform, or 75-7-813 for trustee powers, is naming a section with no text behind it. The current numbers are 75B-2-811 and 75B-2-813, and the words did not change when the numbers did.

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Read the Trust First, Because Utah Makes Most of This a Default Rule

Utah Code 75B-2-105(1) says the chapter governs the duties and powers of a trustee except as otherwise provided in the terms of the trust. Section 75B-2-105(2) then lists the handful of things trust terms cannot override:

  • the requirements for creating a trust
  • the duty to act in good faith and in accordance with the purposes of the trust
  • the requirement that the trust and its terms be for the benefit of the beneficiaries
  • the court's power to modify or terminate a trust under 75B-2-410 through 75B-2-416
  • the effect of a spendthrift provision and the reach of certain creditors
  • the court's power over a bond under 75B-2-702
  • the effect of an exculpatory term under 75B-2-1008
  • the rights of people other than a trustee or beneficiary under 75B-2-1010 through 75B-2-1013
  • the periods of limitation for starting a judicial proceeding
  • the jurisdiction and venue rules in 75B-2-203 and 75B-2-205

The duty to inform and report is not on that list. Neither is the prudent investor rule, which Utah Code 75B-2-901(2)(a) calls a default rule that a trust may expand, restrict, eliminate or otherwise alter, with no liability for a trustee who relied on those terms reasonably. So a Utah trustee reads the document before building a schedule from any national checklist.

Accepting the Job, or Looking Without Committing

Utah Code 75B-2-701(1) says you accept the trusteeship by following whatever method the trust sets out, or, where the trust is silent or its method is not exclusive, by taking delivery of trust property, using a trustee's powers, performing a trustee's duties, or otherwise showing you accepted.

You can also decline. Section 75B-2-701(2)(b) treats a designated trustee who does not accept within a reasonable time after learning of the designation as having rejected the role. And 75B-2-701(3) lets you act to preserve trust property, and inspect it for environmental or other liability, without accepting, so long as you send a rejection within a reasonable time to a qualified beneficiary once the settlor has died.

If nobody is left to serve, Utah Code 75B-2-704(3) fills the vacancy in a fixed order: the person the trust names as successor, then a person appointed by unanimous agreement of the qualified beneficiaries, then a person appointed by the court. A bond is the exception rather than the rule. Utah Code 75B-2-702(1) requires one only where the court finds it needed to protect the beneficiaries or the trust demands it and the court has not waived it.

The Two 60-Day Notices

These are the dated duties most successor trustees ask about, and Utah writes both of them into one section.

NoticeDeadlineWhat it has to sayStatute
Acceptance60 days after acceptingYour name, address and telephone number75B-2-811(2)(b)
Trust became irrevocable60 days after you learn of itThe trust exists, who the settlor was, the right to request a copy of the trust instrument, the right to a report75B-2-811(2)(c)
Portions of the instrumentPromptly, on requestThe parts that describe or affect that beneficiary's interest75B-2-811(2)(a)
Change in your payIn advanceAny change in the method or rate of your compensation75B-2-811(2)(d)

Both 60-day clocks run to the qualified beneficiaries, a defined group rather than everyone named in the document. Utah Code 75B-2-103(8) counts a beneficiary who is currently a distributee or permissible distributee of income or principal, plus anyone who would be one if the trust terminated that day.

Read the second notice beside 75B-2-811(2)(a) before you decide how much paper to hand over. The notice announces a right to request a copy of the trust instrument, while the express furnishing duty in (2)(a) reaches the portions that describe or affect that beneficiary's interest. There is a separate reason to send the whole document anyway, covered further down: under Utah Code 75B-2-604(1)(b) sending a copy of the instrument with the right notice cuts a three-year contest window to 90 days.

Section 75B-2-811(1) sits above all of it. Keep the qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed of the administration and of the material facts they need to protect their interests, and respond promptly to a request for information unless that is unreasonable in the circumstances.

Reports Go to the People Who Ask

Utah Code 75B-2-811(3)(a) sets the reporting duty narrowly. Send a report to the qualified beneficiaries who request it, at least once a year and again at the termination of the trust. The report covers the trust property, its liabilities, receipts and disbursements, the amount of your compensation or a fee schedule showing how it was set, and a listing of the trust assets with market values where feasible.

Two follow-on rules matter. Section 75B-2-811(3)(b) makes a former trustee send a report on a vacancy unless a cotrustee stays in office. Section 75B-2-811(3)(c) lets a personal representative, conservator or guardian send it for a trustee who died or lost capacity. A qualified beneficiary can waive the report under 75B-2-811(4)(a), and can withdraw that waiver as to future reports under (4)(b).

Here is the reason to send reports even to beneficiaries who never ask. Utah Code 75B-2-1005(1) bars a beneficiary from suing you for breach of trust more than six months after they were sent a report that adequately disclosed the existence of a potential claim and told them how long they had to bring it. Without such a report, 75B-2-1005(3) gives them a year from the first of your removal, resignation or death, the end of their interest, or the end of the trust. Section 75B-2-1005(4) keeps fraud and misrepresentation about the report itself outside both windows. A disclosed report shortens your exposure; a thin one does not.

Taking Control, Investing and Keeping Records

Utah Code 75B-2-801 sets the standard the rest of the chapter builds on: administer the trust expeditiously and in good faith, in accordance with its terms and purposes and the interests of the beneficiaries.

  • Secure the property. Utah Code 75B-2-807 requires reasonable steps to take control of and protect trust property.
  • Keep it separate. Utah Code 75B-2-808 requires adequate records, trust property kept apart from your own, and trust ownership shown in records held by someone other than a trustee or beneficiary.
  • Chase what is missing. Utah Code 75B-2-810 requires reasonable steps to compel a former trustee or anyone else to hand over trust property, and to redress a breach you know a former trustee committed.
  • Review the portfolio early. Utah Code 75B-2-904 requires you to review the assets within a reasonable time of accepting and decide what to keep and what to sell.
  • Invest as a prudent investor. Utah Code 75B-2-902 asks for reasonable care, skill and caution, judging each asset inside the portfolio as a whole. Utah Code 75B-2-903 requires diversification unless special circumstances mean the trust is better served without it.
  • Spend sensibly. Utah Code 75B-2-805 lets you incur only costs reasonable in relation to the trust property, its purposes and your own skills. If you were named because you told the settlor you had special skills, 75B-2-806 requires you to use them.

Your powers are broad. Utah Code 75B-2-813(1) gives a trustee, without going to court, the powers the trust confers plus all powers over trust property that an unmarried competent owner would have, and 75B-2-813(2) subjects every one of them to the fiduciary duties in the same part.

Loyalty is where trustees get into trouble. Utah Code 75B-2-802(1) requires you to administer the trust solely in the interests of the beneficiaries, and 75B-2-802(2) makes a self-dealing transaction voidable by an affected beneficiary unless the trust authorized it, the court approved it, the beneficiary consented or ratified it, or the beneficiary did not sue within the time 75B-2-1005 allows. Section 75B-2-802(3) presumes a conflict where you deal with your spouse, your descendants, siblings or parents, your own agent, or a business you have an interest in. If you breach, Utah Code 75B-2-1002(1) sets damages at the greater of restoring the trust to where it would have been, or the profit you made.

Banks, brokerages and title companies rarely need the trust itself. Utah Code 75B-2-1013(1) lets you hand over a certification of trust listing the trust's existence and date, the settlor, the acting trustee and address, your powers in the pending transaction, whether the trust is revocable, cotrustee signing authority, and the name to take title in. Section 75B-2-1013(8) makes a person who demands the full instrument anyway liable for costs, attorney fees and damages where a court finds the demand was not made in good faith. Where the trust holds Utah real estate, Utah Code 75B-2-816(3) says a recorded recital of the trust terms carries the trustee's name and address plus the name and date of the trust.

Utah Puts a Creditor Claims Process Inside the Trust Code

Most national trust pages say a living trust skips the creditor process. Utah wrote one into the trust code, and it is the part an out-of-state checklist will miss.

Utah Code 75B-2-505(3) is the reason it exists: after the settlor dies, property of a trust that was revocable at death answers for the settlor's creditors, administration costs, funeral and disposal expenses, and statutory allowances to a surviving spouse and children, to the extent the probate estate cannot cover them.

Publication is optional. Utah Code 75B-2-508(1) lets you publish notice to creditors once a week for three successive weeks in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the settlor lived, and through the state legal notice system under Section 45-1-101, telling creditors to present claims within three months of first publication or be barred forever.

Written notice to known creditors is not optional. Utah Code 75B-2-508(2) requires it, and gives that creditor 90 days from the published notice or 60 days from your mailing, whichever is later.

The Medicaid notice is not optional either. Where the settlor received medical assistance at any time after age 55, Utah Code 75B-2-508(3)(a) requires written notice to the Director of the Office of Recovery Services to present any claim under Section 26B-3-1013 within 60 days. Skip it and 75B-2-508(3)(b) gives the department a full year from the death instead.

Utah Code 75B-2-509(1) sets the outer wall for claims that arose before the death: one year after the settlor's death, or the shorter notice periods above, whichever comes first. Claims that arise at or after the death run on their own clocks under 75B-2-509(3): three months after your performance is due on a contract you made as trustee, and for anything else the later of three months after the claim arises or the Subsection (1) date. Section 75B-2-509(4) preserves four things regardless, including any proceeding to enforce a mortgage or other lien, and medical assistance recovery. If the money will not stretch, Utah Code 75B-2-511(1) sets the payment order: funeral expenses, administration costs, debts and taxes preferred under federal law, last-illness medical and hospital expenses along with medical assistance where 26B-3-1013 applies, then debts and taxes preferred under other Utah law, then everything else.

Two Medicaid facts are worth stating plainly, because a trust is often sold as protection from them. Utah Code 26B-3-1001(12)(c) writes living trust into the definition of the recovery estate by name. Utah Code 26B-3-1013(1)(a) reaches any trust in which the recipient was both grantor and beneficiary, and 26B-3-1013(5) makes a trust clause drafted to defeat recovery void at the time of its making. The Utah creditor claims page covers the probate side of the same machinery.

Taxes the Trust Now Owes on Its Own

While the settlor was alive and serving as their own trustee, the trust reported under the settlor's Social Security number. After the death it becomes its own taxpayer.

Get an Employer Identification Number from the IRS, at no cost, and open one trust account that every receipt and disbursement runs through. File the settlor's final Form 1040 for the year of death. File federal Form 1041 for income the trust earns after the death, with Schedule K-1s for income passed out to beneficiaries.

Utah taxes a resident trust at the same rate as an individual under Utah Code 59-10-201(1), and 59-10-201(2)(a) takes the tax off a resident trust that is not required to file a federal income tax return for estates and trusts that year. The filing duty sits in a different pair of sections. Utah Code 59-10-502(1) requires a return from every resident individual, estate or trust required to file a federal income tax return for the taxable year, and Utah Code 59-10-504 requires a fiduciary who must file federally to file the matching Utah return. So the federal 1041 requirement is the trigger, not the fact that the trust earned something. The form is the TC-41, Utah Fiduciary Income Tax Return, due April 15 for a calendar-year trust.

Utah imposes no estate tax and no inheritance tax. The Utah State Tax Commission says the federal changes that phased out the credit eliminated Utah's inheritance tax after December 31, 2004, that no Utah inheritance tax return has to be filed, and that Utah does not require an inheritance tax waiver. There is no state death tax return to chase.

Assets That Never Made It Into the Trust

This is the most common real problem in Utah trust administration. A trust only controls what was retitled into it, and the house refinance, the new brokerage account or the cabin bought after the plan was signed often were not.

A pour-over will sends those assets to the trustee, but the will still needs a route into the trustee's hands:

  • Under $100,000 net. Utah Code 75-3-1201(1) allows collection of personal property by sworn affidavit where the entire estate subject to administration, wherever located and less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000, 30 days have passed since the death, and no personal representative has been appointed or applied for in any jurisdiction. The Utah small estate affidavit page works through the details, including the four-vehicle rule and the water share exclusion.
  • Anything larger, or title to real property. The affidavit reaches personal property, so a house with no survivorship or transfer-on-death route of its own means opening a probate in the district court of the county where the settlor lived. The filing fee is a flat $375 under Utah Code 78A-2-301(1)(a), with no percentage of the estate on top. Utah executor duties covers what the personal representative owes once appointed, and the Utah probate guide covers the case itself.

Plenty of Utah families run both at once: a trust administration for the funded assets and a small probate for the stragglers. That is normal, and often the same person handles both.

The Contest Window, and Distributing While It Is Open

Utah Code 75B-2-604(1) requires a proceeding contesting the validity of a trust that was revocable at the settlor's death to start within the earlier of three years after the death, or 90 days after the trustee sends that person a copy of the trust instrument plus notice of the trust's existence, the trustee's name and address, and the time allowed. Sending that packet is what turns a three-year exposure into a 90-day one.

You do not have to sit still meanwhile. Utah Code 75B-2-604(2)(a) lets you distribute under the trust terms, and (2)(b) removes your liability for doing so unless you know of a pending contest, or a potential contestant told you about a possible one and actually filed within 60 days of that notification. Utah Code 75B-2-604(3) is strict about how that warning reaches you: registered or certified mail with return receipt to the principal place of administration, or personal service like a summons, naming the settlor or trust, the contestant and the basis of the contest. You are liable only for actions taken two or more business days after actual receipt, and 75B-2-604(3)(d) says no other form of notice counts. If a trust is later held invalid, 75B-2-604(4) makes a beneficiary return what they received.

Distributing and Closing Out

Utah Code 75B-2-815(2) tells you to proceed expeditiously to distribute to the people entitled, subject to your right to hold back a reasonable reserve for debts, expenses and taxes.

Before you write the checks, consider the proposal route. Utah Code 75B-2-815(1)(a) lets you send the beneficiaries a proposal for distribution, and (1)(b) ends a beneficiary's right to object if they do not notify you within 30 days, but only where the proposal itself told them about the right to object and the time allowed. Leave that sentence out of the proposal and the 30-day cutoff never starts.

A release is not automatic protection. Utah Code 75B-2-815(3) voids a release to the extent it was induced by your improper conduct, or the beneficiary did not know their rights or the material facts about the breach when they signed. Utah Code 75B-2-1009 says the same thing from the other direction about consent and ratification. Full disclosure is what makes a signature stick.

Where everyone agrees but the document is unclear, Utah Code 75B-2-110 gives you a nonjudicial settlement agreement instead of a hearing. Section 75B-2-110(4) lists what it can settle: how to read the trust terms, approval of a trustee's report or accounting, direction to a trustee or a grant of a needed power, a resignation or appointment and the trustee's compensation, a transfer of the principal place of administration, and trustee liability. The limit in 75B-2-110(3) is real: the agreement is valid only so far as it does not violate a material purpose of the trust and contains terms a court could properly have approved.

When a Utah Court Gets Involved

Utah Code 75B-2-201(1) gives the court exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings about the internal affairs of trusts, including appointing or removing a trustee, reviewing a trustee's fees, settling interim or final accounts, ascertaining beneficiaries, construing the instrument and instructing trustees. Any interested party can start one. Utah Code 75B-1-101(7) defines that court, for the whole of Title 75B, as a court with jurisdiction under Title 78A.

Two things follow that surprise people. Utah Code 75B-2-201(2)(a) says such a proceeding does not put the trust under continuing court supervision, so the case ends when the question is answered. Utah Code 75B-2-201(2)(b) says management, distribution, reports to beneficiaries, payment of fees and changes of trustee all proceed free of judicial intervention and without any court order. Venue sits in the county of the trust's principal place of administration under Utah Code 75B-2-205(1)(a), or, for a trust created by a will while the estate is still open, the county administering that estate. Section 75B-2-205(3) carves out an action brought in the Business and Chancery Court. The Utah district courts by county page has the addresses.

What You Get Paid

Utah Code 75B-2-708 is one sentence: where the trust does not specify the trustee's compensation, a trustee is entitled to compensation that is reasonable under the circumstances. There is no Utah percentage schedule.

Utah Code 75B-2-709(1) adds reimbursement out of trust property, with interest where appropriate, for expenses properly incurred, and for improperly incurred expenses to the extent needed to prevent unjust enrichment of the trust. An advance you make to protect the trust gives you a lien on trust property under 75B-2-709(2). Tell the beneficiaries in advance of any change in the method or rate of your pay under 75B-2-811(2)(d), and expect the court to be able to review the number under 75B-2-201(1)(c)(ii).

When to Call a Utah Attorney

Some administrations outgrow a spreadsheet. Talk to a licensed Utah attorney when a beneficiary has objected to a distribution or your fee, when someone has sent you the registered-mail contest warning described in 75B-2-604(3), when the trust holds a business, mineral rights or water shares that need valuing, when the settlor received Medicaid after age 55 and the Office of Recovery Services is in the picture, when claims look likely to exceed what the trust and estate hold together, or when the document says something you cannot reconcile with what the family expects.

Frequently Asked Questions

Where is the Utah Uniform Trust Code?

Title 75B, Chapter 2. Chapter 310 of the 2025 General Session renumbered and amended the whole trust code out of Title 75, Chapter 7, effective May 7, 2025, and every section of the new chapter carries that history line. Title 75 no longer publishes a Chapter 7, so a page or a form that still cites 75-7-811 for the duty to inform is pointing at a chapter with no text behind it. The current section is 75B-2-811. One naming detail travels with the move: the repealed chapter was captioned Utah Uniform Trust Code, and the live chapter is captioned simply Uniform Trust Code.

What are the deadlines for a Utah successor trustee?

Two 60-day notices come first. Utah Code 75B-2-811(2)(b) gives you 60 days after accepting the trusteeship to tell the qualified beneficiaries that you accepted and to give your name, address and telephone number. Utah Code 75B-2-811(2)(c) gives you 60 days after you learn a formerly revocable trust became irrevocable, which for a successor trustee is usually the settlor's death, to notify the qualified beneficiaries of the trust's existence, the identity of the settlor, the right to request a copy of the trust instrument and the right to a report.

Does a Utah trustee have to send an annual accounting?

Only to the qualified beneficiaries who ask for one. Utah Code 75B-2-811(3)(a) says the trustee shall send a report to the qualified beneficiaries who request it, at least annually and at the termination of the trust, covering trust property, liabilities, receipts and disbursements, the trustee's compensation or the schedule behind it, and a list of assets with market values where feasible. A qualified beneficiary can waive the report under 75B-2-811(4) and withdraw that waiver for future reports.

Can the trust document change these Utah trustee duties?

Most of them, yes. Utah Code 75B-2-811 opens each of its duties with the words except to the extent the terms of the trust provide otherwise, and Utah Code 75B-2-105(2) lists what trust terms cannot override. That list does not include the duty to inform and report. It does include the duty to act in good faith and in accordance with the purposes of the trust, the requirement that the trust be for the benefit of its beneficiaries, the effect of an exculpatory term under 75B-2-1008, and the periods of limitation for starting a judicial proceeding. Read the trust before you build a notice schedule from any checklist.

How long does a Utah beneficiary have to sue a trustee?

Six months, if you give them a report that starts the clock. Utah Code 75B-2-1005(1) bars a proceeding for breach of trust more than six months after the beneficiary was sent a report that adequately disclosed the existence of a potential claim and informed them of the time allowed. Where no such report went out, 75B-2-1005(3) allows one year from the first of the trustee's removal, resignation or death, the end of the beneficiary's interest, or the end of the trust. Section 75B-2-1005(4) leaves fraud and misrepresentation about the report outside both limits.

Does a Utah trustee have to notify creditors after the settlor dies?

Publication is optional and two notices are not. Utah Code 75B-2-508(1) lets the trustee of an inter vivos revocable trust publish notice once a week for three successive weeks and through the state legal notice system, which bars unpresented claims three months after first publication. Utah Code 75B-2-508(2) requires written notice to any known creditor. Utah Code 75B-2-508(3)(a) requires written notice to the Director of the Office of Recovery Services where the settlor received medical assistance at any time after age 55, and 75B-2-508(3)(b) gives the department a full year from the death if that notice never goes out.

Does a Utah trust get registered or filed with a court?

No. Utah's trust code sets no registration or filing step, and Utah Code 75B-2-201(2)(b) says management, distribution, reports to beneficiaries, payment of fees and changes of trustee all proceed free of judicial intervention and without a court order. A court can be brought in: Utah Code 75B-2-201(1) gives the court exclusive jurisdiction over the internal affairs of trusts, including removing a trustee, reviewing fees and settling accounts, and Utah Code 75B-1-101(7) defines that court as one with jurisdiction under Title 78A. Section 75B-2-201(2)(a) then says that proceeding does not put the trust under continuing court supervision.

What happens to assets the settlor never moved into the Utah trust?

The trust does not reach them and the estate has to. A pour-over will sends them to the trustee, but the will still needs a route. Utah Code 75-3-1201(1) allows collection of personal property by sworn affidavit where the entire estate subject to administration, less liens and encumbrances, does not exceed $100,000, 30 days have passed since the death, and no personal representative has been appointed or applied for in any jurisdiction. Anything larger or anything involving title to real property goes through the district court, where the filing fee is a flat $375 under Utah Code 78A-2-301(1)(a).

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Settled Estate is not a law firm and does not give legal advice.

Information current as of August 28, 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 Utah can change. Consult with a qualified attorney for advice specific to your situation. Full disclaimer.

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