Revocable Living Trusts in New York: How They Work, What They Cost, and When You Need One

By Albert Goodwin, Esq., an attorney admitted to practice in New York. Last reviewed January 2025. Statutory references link to the official text of the New York Estates, Powers and Trusts Law (EPTL) and Surrogate's Court Procedure Act (SCPA) on nysenate.gov.

A revocable trust is a written instrument in which you, as the creator (also called the grantor or settlor), transfer title to assets to a trustee, often yourself, to hold for your benefit during your life and for named beneficiaries after your death. You keep the power to change or cancel it while you are alive and competent. New York practitioners also call it a living trust or an inter vivos trust. At your death the trust becomes irrevocable and the successor trustee carries out its terms without a Surrogate's Court proceeding.

This page is our main guide to revocable trusts under New York law. It covers the statutory signing rules, how amendment and revocation work, what counts as funding, how a New York deed or co-op transfer is done, how the trust is taxed, and how to decide between a trust and a will. For narrower topics, see the related pages linked at the end: the benefits of a living trust, which assets can and cannot go into a revocable trust, whether trusts are public record, whether trusts are registered, and avoiding probate in New York.

What New York Law Says a Revocable Trust Is

Two sections of the EPTL define the basic structure.

• EPTL 7-1.16: a lifetime trust in New York is irrevocable unless the instrument expressly says it is revocable. If your trust agreement is silent, you cannot revoke it. Every revocable trust we draft states the power to amend and revoke in plain terms. See EPTL 7-1.16.
• EPTL 7-1.1: a trust is not void by merger just because the creator is the sole trustee and the sole current beneficiary, as long as at least one other person holds a present or future beneficial interest. This is what allows the common New York arrangement in which you serve as your own trustee and name your children as remainder beneficiaries. See EPTL 7-1.1.

For income tax purposes a revocable trust is a grantor trust under Internal Revenue Code sections 671 through 677. The trust uses your Social Security number, its income appears on your personal Form 1040, and no separate fiduciary return is required while you are alive. After your death the successor trustee obtains an employer identification number and the trust begins filing Form 1041 and the New York IT-205.

How to Sign a Valid Revocable Trust in New York (EPTL 7-1.17)

New York has a formal execution statute for lifetime trusts. Under EPTL 7-1.17(a), the trust must be:

• In writing. An oral lifetime trust of any asset is not valid in New York.
• Signed by the creator. If the creator is not the sole trustee, at least one trustee must sign as well.
• Acknowledged before a notary or signed before two witnesses. The statute gives a choice: either acknowledge the signatures in the manner required to record a deed in New York, or sign in the presence of two witnesses who also sign the instrument.

Most New York trusts are notarized because the trustee will later need to record deeds and present the instrument to banks and title companies, and those institutions expect an acknowledged signature. A trust that fails EPTL 7-1.17 is not a trust at all; assets you thought were covered fall back into your probate estate, and if you have no will they pass by intestacy under EPTL 4-1.1.

Amending or Revoking the Trust

You cannot change a New York revocable trust by crossing out a paragraph or telling your children what you now want. Two rules control.

• Written, signed, and acknowledged or witnessed. Under EPTL 7-1.17(b), an amendment or revocation must be in writing, signed by the person the trust authorizes to make it, and, unless the trust instrument says otherwise, acknowledged or witnessed in the same manner as the original trust. It takes effect on the date it is signed. If you are not the sole trustee, written notice of the amendment must be delivered to at least one other trustee within a reasonable time.
• Revocation or amendment by will. EPTL 7-1.16 also permits a revocable lifetime trust to be revoked or amended by an express direction in the creator's will that specifically refers to the trust or to a particular provision of it. A general residuary clause does not do this.

A well-drafted trust also addresses who may amend it if you become incapacitated. An agent under a New York statutory short form power of attorney may create, amend, or revoke a trust only if the power of attorney expressly grants that authority in the modifications section (General Obligations Law 5-1514). Without that language, a family member cannot update your trust once you have lost capacity.

Funding the Trust: EPTL 7-1.18 and the Checklist

Signing the trust agreement does nothing by itself. EPTL 7-1.18 provides that a lifetime trust is valid only as to assets actually transferred to it. A schedule stapled to the back of the trust listing your house and accounts is not a transfer. The statute requires:

• For assets that can be registered (real estate, bank and brokerage accounts, stocks, bonds): the deed must be recorded or the account or security re-registered in the name of the trustee.
• For other assets (furniture, art, jewelry, interests in a closely held business or LLC): a written assignment that describes the asset with particularity.

A practical funding checklist for a New York client:

• Real property: new deed from you individually to you as trustee, recorded in the county where the land lies (see the next section).
• Bank accounts: retitled to the trustee, or converted to payable-on-death accounts naming the trust if the bank will not retitle.
• Brokerage accounts and securities: new account opened in the trustee's name and assets journaled over; physical certificates reissued.
• Business interests: written assignment of LLC membership interests or shares, plus any consent required by the operating agreement or shareholders' agreement.
• Tangible personal property: a signed assignment listing the items.
• Life insurance: leave ownership as is; change the beneficiary designation to the trustee if you want the proceeds managed under the trust.
• Retirement accounts (IRA, 401(k), 403(b), pension): do not retitle these. Retitling an IRA to a trust is a distribution and is taxable. Use the beneficiary designation form instead, and review the trust's terms with counsel before naming the trust as beneficiary, because the SECURE Act rules on required distributions apply.

Assets left outside the trust pass under your will. For that reason every revocable trust plan includes a pour-over will, authorized by EPTL 3-3.7, which directs anything you forgot to fund into the trust. Assets that pour over still go through probate, so the pour-over will is a safety net, not a substitute for funding.

Transferring New York Real Property Into a Revocable Trust

Real property is the most common reason New Yorkers create revocable trusts, because a house or condominium in your sole name cannot pass at death without a Surrogate's Court proceeding. The transfer into the trust is done by deed, and the paperwork differs between New York City and the rest of the state.

• The deed. You sign a bargain and sale deed (or quitclaim deed) from yourself individually to yourself as trustee of the trust, dated and identified by the trust's name and date. The deed is recorded with the county clerk, or in the five boroughs through the New York City Register's ACRIS system (Staten Island records with the Richmond County Clerk).
• Form TP-584. The state Combined Real Estate Transfer Tax Return must be filed with every deed. A transfer to your own revocable trust for no consideration generally carries no state transfer tax, but the form must still be completed and filed.
• Form RP-5217. The Real Property Transfer Report is filed with every deed outside New York City; inside the city the form is the RP-5217NYC. A filing fee applies.
• NYC Real Property Transfer Tax return (NYC-RPT). In the five boroughs you also file the city transfer tax return. A conveyance to a revocable trust for no consideration is generally reported as exempt. If the property carries a mortgage, raise this with counsel, because the city can treat an assumed mortgage as consideration in some transfers.
• Mortgage. A transfer of a one- to four-family residence into a revocable trust in which you remain the beneficiary and occupant cannot trigger the lender's due-on-sale clause under the federal Garn-St Germain Act, 12 U.S.C. 1701j-3(d)(8). Notify the lender anyway, and keep the hazard insurance in both your name and the trustee's.
• Title insurance. Ask your title insurer for an endorsement extending the owner's policy to the trustee. Some older policies lapse on a transfer unless this is done.
• Property tax exemptions. STAR, senior citizen, and veterans' exemptions generally continue when the trust beneficiary who lives in the home is treated as the owner under the Real Property Tax Law. Confirm with the local assessor or the NYC Department of Finance after recording.

Co-ops in New York City

A cooperative apartment is not real property. You own shares in the co-op corporation and a proprietary lease. Transferring a co-op into a trust requires the corporation to issue new shares and a new lease to the trustee, and nearly every proprietary lease requires board consent for any transfer. Many Manhattan and Brooklyn boards permit transfers to revocable trusts, but commonly condition approval on an occupancy agreement limiting who may live in the unit, a personal guaranty of maintenance by the grantor or beneficiaries, and a transfer fee. Some boards refuse outright. Before relying on a trust for a co-op, obtain the board's written policy. If the board will not allow the transfer, the shares will have to pass through probate or by a different mechanism such as joint ownership.

What Happens at Death

When you die, the successor trustee named in the instrument takes over without any court appointment. There is no petition, no citation to distributees, no waiting for letters, and no Surrogate's Court filing fee. The trustee's authority comes from the trust document itself, usually shown to banks and title companies with a certified death certificate, an affidavit of trusteeship, and copies of the pages identifying the trust and the successor trustee.

For real property, the successor trustee does not simply file an affidavit with the county. The trustee signs and records a trustee's deed from the trust to the beneficiary (or to a buyer, if the trust directs a sale), with a new TP-584 and RP-5217 or RP-5217NYC, and in the city an NYC-RPT. Transfer taxes may apply at that stage if the transfer is for consideration. The title company will want the death certificate and the trust excerpts recorded or held in its file.

Death does not eliminate the other obligations of an estate. The successor trustee must pay the decedent's debts from trust assets to the extent the probate estate is insufficient, file final income tax returns, and file federal and New York estate tax returns if the gross estate exceeds the filing thresholds discussed below. The trustee owes the beneficiaries the same fiduciary duties an executor owes, including the duty to account. See our page on beneficiaries' rights to trust information.

Incapacity Planning Without an Article 81 Guardianship

A revocable trust is also a disability plan. If you become unable to manage your affairs, the successor trustee steps in under the trust's own terms, typically on written certification by one or two physicians, and continues paying your bills, managing investments, and maintaining your property. Without a trust or a sufficiently broad power of attorney, your family may have to petition the Supreme Court for a guardian under Article 81 of the Mental Hygiene Law. That proceeding requires a court evaluator, a hearing, annual accountings to the court, and often a bond. It is public, slow, and costs thousands of dollars in legal fees. A funded revocable trust avoids it for every asset titled to the trust.

What a Revocable Trust Cannot Do

Because you keep full control, the law treats trust assets as still yours for most purposes.

• No creditor protection. EPTL 7-3.1 provides that a disposition in trust for the use of the creator is void as against existing or subsequent creditors. A judgment creditor can reach everything in your revocable trust.
• No Medicaid planning. Assets in a revocable trust are available resources under 42 U.S.C. 1396p(d)(3)(A) and Social Services Law 366. Transferring your home to a revocable trust does not start the five-year look-back and does not protect it from estate recovery.
• No income or estate tax savings during life. The trust is ignored for income tax, and everything in it is included in your taxable estate at death. Tax and asset protection goals require an irrevocable trust. See advanced New York estate planning techniques.

How a Revocable Trust Is Taxed at Death

Older versions of this page suggested that a revocable trust avoids transfer taxes. That is not correct, and the point deserves a plain statement.

• Federal estate tax. Because you retained the power to revoke, every asset in the trust is included in your gross estate under Internal Revenue Code section 2038 (and usually section 2036). The federal basic exclusion amount is $13,990,000 per person for deaths in 2025. Estates below that figure owe no federal estate tax, but not because of the trust.
• New York estate tax. New York taxes estates under Tax Law Article 26. Revocable trust assets are included. The New York basic exclusion amount is $7,160,000 for deaths on or after January 1, 2025. New York has no portability between spouses and has a cliff: if the taxable estate exceeds the exclusion by more than five percent, the entire estate is taxed from the first dollar, not just the excess. Planning around the cliff is done with disclaimers, credit shelter provisions, and charitable bequests built into the trust, not by the revocable trust alone.
• Generation-skipping transfer tax. If the trust continues for grandchildren or later generations, the federal GST tax (Internal Revenue Code Chapter 13) applies to transfers to skip persons unless GST exemption is allocated. A trust designed to last for more than one generation needs GST planning in the document and on the estate tax return.
• Income tax basis. Because the assets are included in your estate, they receive a stepped-up basis at death under Internal Revenue Code section 1014, the same as assets passing under a will.

How long a New York trust can last

New York has not adopted a dynasty-trust statute of the kind found in Delaware, South Dakota, or Nevada. The state's rule against perpetuities is codified in EPTL 9-1.1. Every interest in the trust must vest, if at all, within twenty-one years after the death of one or more lives in being, measured (for a trust the creator could revoke) from the creator's death, when the trust became irrevocable. EPTL 9-1.2 and 9-1.3 soften the rule by reducing age contingencies and applying construction presumptions, but a New York trust cannot run indefinitely. Clients who want a multi-generational trust governed by a longer perpetuities period usually need a trust sited in another state with a trustee there.

Will or Trust: A Decision Framework for New York

A revocable trust is the right choice for some New Yorkers and an unnecessary expense for others. The questions below usually settle it.

When a will and probate are the cheaper, sensible choice

• Small estates. If you own no real property and your personal property is $50,000 or less (excluding exempt property set aside for a spouse or children under EPTL 5-3.1), your family can use voluntary administration under SCPA 1301. The filing fee is one dollar and the proceeding is handled by affidavit.
• Most assets already pass outside probate. Joint accounts with right of survivorship, payable-on-death and Totten trust accounts, retirement accounts and life insurance with named beneficiaries, and real property held as tenants by the entirety or joint tenants all pass without a will or a trust.
• Cooperative, uncontested family. An uncontested New York probate with a self-proving will and consenting distributees is a manageable proceeding. Filing fees under SCPA 2402 are on a sliding scale from $45 for estates under $10,000 to $1,250 for estates of $500,000 or more. See a sample NYC probate timeline.

When a revocable trust is worth the cost

• Real property in more than one state. A house in Queens and a condominium in Florida means two probates, one of them an ancillary proceeding. Titling both to the trust eliminates both. See ancillary letters in New York.
• Incapacity planning. You want a named person able to manage your property without an Article 81 guardianship.
• Privacy. A probated will, the petition, and the list of distributees are public records in the Surrogate's Court. A trust is not filed anywhere. See are trusts public record.
• Difficult or missing distributees. Probate requires citation to every distributee, including an estranged child, a sibling you have not spoken to in decades, or heirs whose whereabouts are unknown. A trust requires no citation and gives a disappointed relative fewer procedural openings, although a trust can still be challenged on capacity or undue influence grounds.
• Continued management after death. You want assets held for a minor, a child with a disability, or a beneficiary who should not receive a lump sum. A trust can hold assets until a stated age or event. For a beneficiary receiving government benefits, see the benefits of a special needs trust.
• Long delays in your county. Letters testamentary in some New York City counties can take months to issue even in uncontested matters, during which no one has authority to sell, refinance, or distribute.

What a Revocable Trust Costs in New York

A revocable trust costs more to set up than a will because it requires a longer instrument, a pour-over will, and the work of retitling assets. Based on what we see in the New York City market, and offered as a general observation rather than a quotation:

• Will-based plan (will, statutory power of attorney, health care proxy, living will): commonly from several hundred dollars to about $2,500 in attorney fees, depending on the number of trusts within the will and the complexity of the family.
• Revocable trust plan (trust, pour-over will, power of attorney, health care proxy, funding instructions): commonly from about $2,500 to $7,500 or more, with higher fees for estates requiring estate tax or GST provisions.
• Each deed into the trust: attorney preparation of the deed, TP-584, and RP-5217 or RP-5217NYC, plus recording charges and filing fees, which together commonly run from a few hundred dollars into the low thousands per parcel depending on the county and the number of pages.
• Co-op transfers: add the co-op's transfer fee and the managing agent's processing charge, which vary widely by building.

Against those costs, weigh what the estate would otherwise pay in probate: the Surrogate's Court filing fee, attorney fees for the probate petition and any kinship or citation issues, and the carrying costs of a property that cannot be sold until letters issue. For a modest estate with a single New York home and cooperative heirs, the will is usually cheaper overall. For estates with out-of-state property, privacy concerns, or a likely contest, the trust usually is.

Frequently Asked Questions About New York Revocable Trusts

Does a New York revocable trust have to be notarized?

Not necessarily, but it must be either acknowledged before a notary in the manner required to record a deed or signed in the presence of two witnesses who also sign, under EPTL 7-1.17. Notarization is the standard practice because banks and title companies expect it.

Can I be the only trustee and the only beneficiary of my own revocable trust?

You can be the sole trustee and the sole current beneficiary as long as the trust names at least one other person with a present or future interest, such as a child who takes at your death. EPTL 7-1.1 prevents the trust from failing by merger in that situation.

Do I need a separate tax identification number for my revocable trust?

No. While you are alive and the trust is revocable, it reports under your Social Security number and you report its income on your personal return. The successor trustee obtains an EIN after your death.

If my house is in a revocable trust, does my family still have to go to Surrogate's Court?

Not for the house. The successor trustee signs and records a trustee's deed with the required transfer tax forms. Any asset you did not retitle to the trust, however, passes under your pour-over will and does require probate, unless it qualifies for voluntary administration under SCPA 1301.

Will putting my home in a revocable trust protect it from a nursing home or Medicaid?

No. Revocable trust assets are countable resources for Medicaid eligibility and remain subject to estate recovery. Protection requires an irrevocable trust and attention to the five-year look-back.

Can I put my New York City co-op in a revocable trust?

Only with the co-op board's consent, which the proprietary lease almost always requires. Many boards permit it subject to an occupancy agreement and a guaranty; some do not. Ask for the board's written transfer policy before deciding.

Related Pages on This Site

This page is the general guide. The following pages address single questions in more detail and do not repeat the material above:

• Benefits of a living trust: a focused discussion of the advantages, for readers who have already decided a trust is appropriate.
• Assets that can and cannot go into a revocable trust: an asset-by-asset treatment of funding decisions.
• Are trusts public record? and Are trusts registered?: privacy and filing questions.
• How to avoid probate in New York: all probate-avoidance tools compared, not only trusts.
• Testamentary trusts: trusts created inside a will rather than during life.
• Trust attorney in NYC: our trust drafting and trust litigation services.

Speak With a New York Trust Attorney

If you are deciding between a will and a revocable trust, need a trust that satisfies EPTL 7-1.17, or need help funding a trust with New York real property or a co-op, the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin can help. We have offices in Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens. Call 212-233-1233 or email [email protected] to schedule a consultation.