Trusts. Lots of varieties, and lots of mystery. Here’s some basic information.
Trusts exist for many reasons, most of them bound up in estate planning. Trusts vary in terms of their purposes and terms, but they all have about them a core concept: they are tri-party agreements that involve fiduciary duties.
A tri-party agreement involves three parties. A trust always has at least one settler/trust, at least one trustee, and at least one beneficiary. The settlor—trustor is a synonymous term here—creates a trust by depositing now, or promising to deposit sometime in the future, often at death—money or other assets. The settlor is also almost always the person who has the trust agreement drafted.
Every trust has at least