A living trust (sometimes called an inter vivos trust) is a trust that you establish during your lifetime. Unless you establish an irrevocable trust, you retain the right to change it any way you want to in the future. Normally during your lifetime, you are the trustee and the beneficiary. Because of a peculiarity of the probate statute, assets in the trust are not subject to the probate process. They go under a different set of rules called trust administration. In New York, California and Florida, that distinction is huge. In Minnesota, it is less important.