LivingTrust Standard Specification

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LivingTrust Standard

A Foundation for Every Generation

LivingTrust Standard is an AGPL-3.0+ open source specification for a modular living trust architecture designed around financial stability, capital preservation, predictable income, individualized cost-of-living support, deterministic beneficiary succession, and generational continuity.

The specification establishes a common architecture that can be independently implemented for an individual’s living trust and subsequently reused as a standardized template for independently established trusts for family members. Each trust remains legally and financially independent while following the same core specification.

LivingTrust Standard is an architectural specification and does not itself create a legally enforceable trust. Actual trust instruments, trustee appointments, beneficiary provisions, transfers, tax treatment, and administration must comply with applicable law and be established through appropriate legal and financial professionals.

Design Principles

Independent trust implementation
Modular architecture
Stable and predictable income
Capital preservation
No speculative investment strategy
No unnecessary financial risk
Sustainable monthly distributions
Deterministic beneficiary selection
Equal beneficiary allocation where specified
Annual residency determination
State-based cost-of-living calculations
AI-assisted research and verification
Human and legally authorized trust administration
IRS gift-giving compliance
Transparent calculations and records
Generational continuity
Reusable trust architecture
Open source implementation under AGPL-3.0+

Core Modules

Trust Foundation Module

The Trust Foundation Module defines the fundamental architecture of every trust established using the specification.

Features include:

Individual living trust architecture
Independent legal trust implementation
Grantor definition
Trustee definition
Beneficiary definition
Successor trustee framework
Trust jurisdiction
Trust lifecycle
Trust governance
Trust records
Legal compliance requirements
Tax compliance requirements
Independent trust accounting
Independent trust assets
Independent trust accounts
Independent trust administration

Every newly established trust follows the same specification unless applicable law requires a provision to be modified.

Financial Stability Module

The Financial Stability Module establishes mandatory financial requirements.

Features include:

No-risk investment requirement
Stable-income requirement
Principal preservation
No speculative investment strategy
No unnecessary leverage
Diversification
Liquidity requirements
Required financial reserves
Sustainable distribution requirements
Income monitoring
Asset monitoring
Annual financial review
Protection of required monthly distributions from temporary investment gains or losses

The primary objective is sustainable financial support rather than maximizing speculative investment returns.

Personal Trust Module

The Personal Trust Module defines the initial individualized living trust.

Features include:

Personalized trust implementation
Monthly personal distributions
Private endeavor funding
Educational purpose funding
Personal financial support
Trust income tracking
Trust asset tracking
Reserve management
Distribution management
Independent administration

The personal trust remains independent from all subsequently established family trusts and has no obligation to establish or fund them.

Independent Family Trust Module

The Independent Family Trust Module defines the standardized architecture for trusts established separately for family members.

Features include:

Carbon-copy architectural implementation
Individual trust establishment
Independent trust ownership
Independent trust assets
Independent trust accounts
Independent accounting
Independent administration
Independent beneficiaries
Independent distributions
Independent reserves
Independent investment management
Common specification compliance

Each family trust follows the same LivingTrust Standard architecture while remaining legally and financially separate from every other trust.

Distribution Module

The Distribution Module defines recurring beneficiary payments.

Features include:

Monthly distributions
Predictable payment schedules
Cost-of-living-based calculations
Equal allocation requirements
Distribution reserves
Payment records
Distribution verification
Distribution audit trails
Guardian payment routing
Annual distribution calculations

Trust distributions are determined by the rules established by the trust rather than discretionary changes by an AI system.

Beneficiary Governance Module

The Beneficiary Governance Module establishes the beneficiary succession hierarchy.

Features include:

Youngest-child priority
Equal allocation among qualifying beneficiaries
Sibling-family succession
Youngest-generation succession within sibling families
First-generation aunt and uncle succession
Youngest-generation succession within aunt and uncle families
Equal allocation across qualifying beneficiaries
Beneficiary verification
Survivorship requirements
Beneficiary succession
Deterministic selection rules

The beneficiary hierarchy applies independently to every trust established under the specification.

Minor and Legally Incapable Beneficiary Module

The Minor and Legally Incapable Beneficiary Module governs payment administration when the qualified beneficiary cannot directly receive trust payments.

Features include:

Direct payment to legally capable adult beneficiaries
Guardian-managed payments for beneficiaries under 18
Guardian-managed payments for legally incapable beneficiaries
Legal guardian verification
Legal representative verification
Beneficiary ownership preservation
Joint custody payment administration
Mother-designated payment recipient when parents have joint custody, subject to applicable law and court orders

A guardian or authorized representative receives payments for administration on behalf of the beneficiary and does not become the underlying beneficiary solely by receiving the payment.

New Generation Access Module

The New Generation Access Module provides a fallback beneficiary mechanism when no qualifying family beneficiaries exist.

Features include:

Fallback beneficiary selection
New Year Beneficiary Window
January 1 commencement
Twelve-month identification period
Chronological birth ranking
Official birth record verification
Household income verification
Government-declared poverty-level eligibility
Equal beneficiary allocation
Deterministic selection
Closed annual beneficiary determination
No retroactive beneficiary additions
Distribution after completion of the determination period

The New Year Beneficiary Window begins at exactly 12:00:00 AM on January 1 of each calendar year and remains open for one year for the identification and verification of qualifying children.

No funds are released during the determination period.

Eligible births are ranked chronologically according to authoritative birth records. Once the determination period closes, the qualifying beneficiary list becomes final for that annual cycle.

Birth records or qualifying beneficiaries not discovered and verified within the one-year determination period cannot be retroactively added to that completed annual beneficiary class.

Every qualifying child receives an equal trust allocation from the designated beneficiary funds until those funds are depleted, subject to the applicable trust rules and law.

Annual Residency Module

The Annual Residency Module determines the state used for each beneficiary’s annual cost-of-living calculation.

Features include:

Mandatory annual residency declaration
State of residence declaration before January 1
Annual residency record
State-based cost-of-living assignment
Fixed annual residency classification
Residency verification
Annual recalculation eligibility

Each beneficiary must declare their primary state of residence for the upcoming calendar year before January 1.

The declared state governs the beneficiary’s cost-of-living calculation for that calendar year.

Cost of Living Module

The Cost of Living Module establishes a standardized state-level calculation for monthly beneficiary support.

Features include:

State-level averages
Two-bedroom apartment rental rate
Residential utility costs
Internet service included within utilities
Electricity
Water and sewer
Natural gas or other household energy
Trash service
Automobile payment
Automobile insurance
Food
Clothing
Gasoline and transportation fuel
Monthly cost-of-living baseline
Annual cost-of-living dataset
State-specific distribution calculations
Dataset versioning

The baseline calculation uses:

Two-bedroom apartment rent + utilities including internet + automobile payment + automobile insurance + food + clothing + gasoline and transportation fuel = monthly cost-of-living baseline.

The specification uses state averages rather than requiring reimbursement of individual beneficiary expenses.

AI Research Module

The AI Research Module researches and delivers the annual state averages required by the Cost of Living Module.

Features include:

Annual state-level research
Government data prioritization
Reputable statistical source research
Source verification
Publication date tracking
Data-period tracking
Category-level source attribution
Data-quality validation
Conflicting-data detection
Missing-data detection
Annual dataset generation
Dataset versioning
Research audit trail
Calculation audit trail
Reproducible results

The AI functions as a research, verification, and calculation system.

The AI does not have discretionary authority to select beneficiaries, alter trust rules, or independently determine beneficiary payments.

Gift Compliance Module

The Gift Compliance Module provides controls for transfers made in connection with independently established family trusts.

Features include:

IRS gift-giving compliance
Applicable annual gift exclusion tracking
Applicable federal gift-tax threshold tracking
Tax-year-specific calculations
Transfer documentation
Donor records
Recipient records
Gift records
Tax reporting identification
Compliance review
Transfer audit trails
Prohibition against using the specification to circumvent applicable gift-tax requirements

The specification does not permanently embed tax-year dollar amounts. Applicable federal thresholds must be determined for the relevant tax year.

Trust Administration Module

The Trust Administration Module provides the operational framework for administering each trust.

Features include:

Trustee administration
Successor trustee administration
Beneficiary records
Asset records
Income records
Expense records
Distribution records
Reserve records
Residency records
Cost-of-living records
Investment records
Annual reporting
Document retention
Compliance monitoring
Administrative audit trails

Governance Module

The Governance Module establishes consistent administration across every implementation.

Features include:

Mandatory core rules
Deterministic calculations
Limited trustee discretion
Rule versioning
Dataset versioning
Annual review
Legal compliance controls
Administrative controls
Auditability
Separation of trust authority from AI research
Independent trust governance

Where applicable law conflicts with a specification requirement, the legally required provision controls the implementation.

Optional Plugin Modules

Optional plugins may extend the LivingTrust Standard without changing the mandatory core architecture.