The Irrevocable Label.

Jenson is a family dispute rather than a creditor case. The reasoning still goes to the center of asset protection. If the settlor can still demand the money, the law treats the money as still hers. Her creditors will usually be able to reach whatever she can reach.

After her husband died in 2009, Caron Jenson created The Caron L. Jenson Trust as a revocable living trust, naming herself settlor and trustee. Its assets included about 216 acres of farmland near Nephi, Utah, with water shares, and brokerage accounts worth about $345,000 (Id. ¶¶ 4–5). Her son Ken said the trust was meant to protect her assets from other sons “who tended to get into legal trouble and frequently demanded financial support”. Caron alleged that Ken had unduly influenced her (Id. ¶ 4).

Two provisions of the trust agreement decided the case.

• Article Four (the “Payment Provision”): “The [t]rustee shall further pay principal, to the [settlor] upon written request” (Id. ¶ 7 (emphasis omitted)).
• Article Ten (the spendthrift clause): “The interest of the [b]eneficiaries in the principal and/or income of the Trust shall not be subject to the claim or claims of their creditors or others, not to legal process, and may not be voluntarily or involuntarily alienated or encumbered” (Id. ¶ 9).

In early 2010 Caron resigned as trustee and Ken succeeded her. Several months later she amended Article Three so that it read only: “The Trust is irrevocable and cannot be amended.” The amendment added that “[a]ll of the other paragraphs … shall remain in full force and effect” (Id. ¶ 10). Those other paragraphs included the Payment Provision.

In 2024 Caron sent Ken written requests to transfer the trust’s assets to her. He refused, and she sued. The district court found an ambiguity in a request for all the assets, so Caron asked instead for nearly half: the “Fairground property” and forty-two irrigation-company shares. The court ordered that transfer (Id. ¶¶ 11–17). Ken took an interlocutory appeal.

Judge Luthy, joined by Judges Mortensen and Tenney, affirmed. The analysis has three steps.

First, the Payment Provision is an unrestricted power of withdrawal. Utah’s Uniform Trust Code defines a “power of withdrawal” as “a presently exercisable power of appointment other than a power exercisable only upon consent of the trustee or a person holding an adverse interest” (Utah Code § 75B-2-103(6); Jenson, 2026 UT App 158, ¶ 26). The Payment Provision lets Caron designate herself as the recipient of trust principal at any time, without the trustee’s consent. That makes it a presently exercisable general power of appointment and therefore an unrestricted withdrawal power (Jenson, 2026 UT App 158, ¶¶ 25–27 (applying Utah Code § 75A-4-102(6), (13)(a), (14)(a))). Ken argued that a power exercised by written request to the trustee is not a true withdrawal power. The court disagreed. Because legal title rests with the trustee, a written request is simply how a settlor exercises the power (Id. ¶ 28).

Second, an unrestricted withdrawal power includes the power to revoke. The court relied on Utah Code § 75B-2-603(4): “During the period the power may be exercised, the holder of a power of withdrawal has the rights of a settlor of a revocable trust … to the extent of the property subject to the power.” It also relied on the Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 74 cmt. a: “[I]f the terms of a trust merely provide that the settlor reserves a power of withdrawal, and the power is unrestricted and subject to no unfulfilled condition precedent, that power constitutes a power of revocation” (Id. ¶ 32 (quoting Utah Code § 75B-2-603(4) and Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 74 cmt. a (Am. L. Inst. 2007))).

Third, substance prevails over the label. In Dahl v. Dahl, 2015 UT 79, the Utah Supreme Court held that a trust described as “irrevocable” was nonetheless “revocable under Utah law” because the settlor had reserved an unrestricted power to amend it (Dahl v. Dahl, 2015 UT 79, ¶¶ 30–32, 459 P.3d 276; Jenson, 2026 UT App 158, ¶¶ 14, 21). The Court of Appeals stated the rule in general terms: “when a settlor expressly reserves an unrestricted power that, in effect, allows the settlor to revoke the trust, the trust is revocable even if it contains a provision purporting to make the trust irrevocable” (Jenson, 2026 UT App 158, ¶¶ 22, 33). The court also quoted Bogert: “[a] statement that the trust is intended to be irrevocable will control, unless it is contradicted by other terms of the trust” (Id. ¶ 22 (quoting George G. Bogert et al., The Law of Trusts & Trustees § 1000); see id. ¶ 23 (collecting cases from other jurisdictions)).

Ken offered several ways to read the provisions together. The court rejected each of them.

• The trustee’s discretion. Other clauses gave Ken “sole and absolute discretion” over principal in specific situations, such as Caron’s disability, insurance premiums, and her debts. Nothing in them limited the Payment Provision. “[H]armonizing a document’s various provisions does not mean abandoning the clear meaning of one in order to give effect to the plain meaning of another” (Id. ¶¶ 34–36 (quoting Crosbie v. 750 West Owners Ass’n, 2026 UT App 9, ¶ 43, 586 P.3d 10)).
• The trustee’s broad powers. A clause giving the trustee the powers of an “absolute owner” did not conflict with the withdrawal power. Under § 75B-2-603(1)(a), “[t]o the extent a trust is revocable by a settlor, a trustee may follow a direction of the settlor that is contrary to the terms of the trust” (Id. ¶¶ 37–38 (quoting Utah Code § 75B-2-603(1)(a))).
• The spendthrift clause. This is the most important point for asset-protection planning. Ken argued that if Caron could withdraw at will, her creditors could reach everything and the spendthrift clause “would serve no purpose.” The court answered with § 75B-2-603(2): to the extent a trust is revocable, “rights of the beneficiaries are subject to the control of, and the duties of the trustee are owed exclusively to, the settlor” (Id. ¶ 39 (quoting Utah Code § 75B-2-603(2))). A spendthrift clause cannot override a power the settlor kept.

Jenson was between a mother and her son, and no creditor appeared. But the case turns on retained control, and retained control is exactly what creditors look for.

A revocable trust gives no protection against the settlor’s creditors. Utah’s Uniform Trust Code says so directly. Under Utah Code § 75B-2-505(1)(a), during the settlor’s lifetime the property of a revocable trust is subject to the claims of the settlor’s creditors, whether or not the trust contains a spendthrift provision (Utah Code § 75B-2-505(1)(a) (creditor’s claim against settlor; applies “[w]hether or not the terms of a trust contain a spendthrift provision”)). Jenson holds that an unrestricted withdrawal power makes the trust revocable to the extent of the property the power covers. The practical conclusion is that a trust with this kind of provision should be expected to offer the settlor no shelter from her own creditors for any property she can call back, whatever its cover page says.

Even a genuinely irrevocable self-settled trust is exposed to the extent of the settlor’s benefit. Section 75B-2-505(2) lets a settlor’s creditor reach “the maximum amount that can be distributed to or for the settlor’s benefit.” The exception is a trust that meets Utah’s separate asset-protection-trust requirements in Chapter 1, Part 3 (Utah Code § 75B-2-505(2) (excepting trusts that satisfy Title 75B, Chapter 1, Part 3, Asset Protection Trusts)). Statutory asset-protection trusts, onshore and offshore, typically protect a settlor only where the settlor has given up the right to compel distributions. A settlor who can demand principal “upon written request” has not given it up.

The spendthrift clause protected the wrong people. Many clients believe a spendthrift clause makes a trust creditor-proof. It does not. A spendthrift clause restrains the transfer of a beneficiary’s interest by the beneficiary or the beneficiary’s creditors. Under the general law of trusts, it does not protect a settlor who is also a beneficiary from the settlor’s own creditors (see Restatement (Third) of Trusts § 58(2)). Jenson confirms that where the settlor has kept a power of revocation, the clause gives way to the settlor’s control.

The trustee was not independent of the power. Ken was a separate person from his mother and held legal title. But the instrument required him to pay on request, so his independence was nominal. Independent administration means that a trustee who is not the settlor, and not obliged to follow the settlor’s instructions, exercises real discretion. A trustee who must comply on demand protects no one.

The lesson of Jenson is not that trusts fail. It is that a trust does only what its terms allow, read as a whole. For a structure meant to resist the settlor’s creditors, the terms usually need to show four things.

1. Irrevocability in substance, not only in title. No retained power to revoke, amend, or withdraw, whether stated directly or arising, as here, from a payment clause that survives an amendment.
2. Discretionary distributions. Any benefit to the settlor is at the independent trustee’s discretion, with no fixed entitlement, standard, or demand right the settlor or the settlor’s creditors could enforce.
3. Independent administration. A trustee, and where appropriate a protector, who is genuinely independent of the settlor and can decline a request.
4. Seasoning. The structure is funded while the settlor is solvent and no claim is foreseeable. Even well-drafted terms will not protect a transfer that is itself voidable.

Caron’s 2010 amendment is the part of the case most worth noticing. She took the formal step of declaring the trust irrevocable, but she left in place the operative clause that defeated the declaration. Converting a revocable living trust into a protective structure is not done with a one-line amendment. It requires a review of the whole instrument, including payment provisions, trustee-discretion clauses, powers of appointment, and amendment and removal powers. Often the better course is a new instrument with a new, independent trustee. Ken’s account was that the trust was meant to protect his mother’s assets from family members. If so, the drafting did not carry out that purpose, which is common with documents assembled in stages over many years.

The court did not decide every issue. It expressly declined to address how the amendment’s statement that the trust “cannot be amended” interacts with the rest of the agreement. It also remanded for “such proceedings as may now be appropriate” (Jenson, 2026 UT App 158, ¶¶ 10 n.6, 41). Claims of undue influence, breach of fiduciary duty, and the like remain pending below. How any particular instrument would fare depends on its exact terms and the governing law.

Jenson restates an old rule. The court will read the whole trust instrument, and if the settlor can call the money back, the money is still hers. A creditor of the settlor will rely on that conclusion. The planning question is not whether a trust is described as irrevocable. It is whether anything in the instrument still lets the settlor reach the assets. Protection requires that the answer be no, that the instrument was drafted that way before any claim arose, and that an independent trustee administers it on those terms.

This note is for general information and planning discussion and is not legal advice for any specific matter. Trust terms are construed as a whole under the governing law, and the effect of any instrument depends on its exact language and the facts.