Trusts

• In a trust, one party, the settlor, makes a permanent transfer of assets into a trust, a legal entity. This trust is managed and controlled by a trustee, a person who has the legal right to transfer and distribute the property. Before the transfer, the settlor designates one or more individuals (or, in the case of charitable trusts, a charity) who become beneficiaries. The beneficiaries are equitable owners of the assets in the trust. While they do not have the legal rights enjoyed by the trustee, they have the right to all benefit and enjoyment of the assets.
  
  

Irrevocability

• In a revocable trust, the settlor typically has the right to change or terminate the trust at any time before his death. (After his death, it becomes a more complicated matter.) However, in an irrevocable trust, the initial transfer of assets to the trustee is intended to be permanent and irrevocable.
  
  

Trust Instrument

• The above rules are general rules for an irrevocable trust. However, many of the technical details of a particular trust may vary. When the settlor creates the trust, the trust instrument usually spells out all of the terms and conditions of that particular trust. A given irrevocable trust may contain very individualized terms. For instance, the trust may stipulate that, under certain conditions, the primary beneficiary may change or the settlor may condition the beneficiary's continued right to distributions from the trust on certain behavior by the trustee.
  
  

Termination or Modification

• Termination or modification of an irrevocable trust is not impossible, but the law makes it fairly difficult. If the settlor of the trust is still alive, a modification generally requires that the settlor and every single beneficiary to the trust consent in writing to the change. However, if the settlor is dead, the Claflin doctrine allows termination or modification if all the remaining beneficiaries consent -- but only if the change doesn't contradict the settlor's material purpose in creating the trust. However, many irrevocable trusts do contain a termination date in the explicit terms of the trust, and the law will honor this termination date even if the settlor is dead.