A trust is formed when a person or business (legally referred to as the settlor) puts property into the control of another (person or business), usually called the trustee, for the benefit of a person or group called the beneficiaries. There are legal questions and terminologies that surround this essential description. For example, there are legal questions as to what constitutes property for the purpose of a trust and there are other legal names used for the three essential actors involved in this formulation. It is also important to keep in mind that the settlor (the person or group who begins the trust) can also be one of the beneficiaries.

It is this final fact that is often the beginning of an important problem. The settlor who creates the trust for his or her benefit and for the benefit of others, often creates the trust in such a way that he/she gets the greatest amount of benefit and retains the greatest possible control over the trust that. The settlor also wishes to retain the ability to dissolve the trust in case one of the other beneficiaries presents a legal problem (or for that matter any other problem), or the trustee proves ineffective or problematic in some way.

The problem is when and under what circumstances is a trust revocable, and when or under what circumstances can a trust become irrevocable. In most states a trust is revocable only if the writing that creates the trust says that it is revocable. In other states the position is reversed; a trust is irrevocable only if the writing that creates the trust says that it is irrevocable. But, let