Smith County Certification of Trust (Sworn Certification) Form

A Texas trustee is regularly asked to prove the trust: a title company examining a sale of trust real property, a bank retitling an account, a lender confirming who holds the power to sign. Handing over the trust instrument answers the question at the cost of privacy, because the trust agreement carries the dispositive terms, the beneficiaries, and the family arrangements. Texas Property Code Section 114.086 supplies the alternative this form prepares: a certification of trust, the trustee's own statement of the operational facts, sworn before a notary so it is ready for the county real property records.

Proof of the trust without the trust agreement

The certification carries the seven items the statute lists: that the trust exists and the date its instrument was executed, the settlors, the currently acting trustees with a mailing address, the trustee's powers, whether the trust is revocable and who holds a power to revoke it, the authority of cotrustees, and the manner in which title to trust property is taken. Section 114.086(c) requires one more statement, and the form's certification section carries it verbatim: that the trust has not been revoked, modified, or amended in any manner that would cause the representations contained in the certification to be incorrect. The dispositive terms of the trust are expressly not required, so the trust agreement itself stays private.

The statute then makes the certification worth accepting. A person who relies on it without knowledge that its representations are incorrect may assume the stated facts without inquiry, a good faith transaction made in reliance on it is enforceable against the trust property, and a person who demands the entire trust instrument anyway risks damages where a court finds the demand was not made in good faith. Any one trustee may sign, even where cotrustees serve.

Sworn with a jurat, presumed correct when recorded

This variant of the form is sworn rather than acknowledged: the trustee takes an oath before the notary, who completes a jurat. An instrument sworn to with a proper jurat is eligible for recording under Property Code Section 12.001(a), and recording is where a 2023 addition to the Trust Code does its work. Under Section 114.087, a certification of trust recorded in the county in which real property of the trust is located is presumed to correctly identify the trust and the trustee, and a good faith purchaser or lender for value may rely on it. The form's optional property section identifies that county and the legal description, so the recorded certification sits in the chain of title where later examiners look.

What the package prepares

The download includes the blank certification as a fillable PDF with a removable instructions page, a completed example showing the entire document filled in for a realistic Texas trust, and a plain language guide that walks through every numbered section, the oath and jurat, and the recording step, including the photo identification requirement at the recording counter for instruments filed in person on or after December 4, 2025. The certification is formatted to Texas recording standards, with space reserved on page one for the clerk's stamp. The materials are informational and are not legal advice; a Texas attorney can address how the statute operates on a particular trust or transaction.