Nevada has two trust statutes and most of the conversation only involves one of them.

NRS Chapter 166 is the asset protection trust statute — the self-settled spendthrift trust, the thing people mean when they say “Nevada DAPT.” It is real, it is well drafted, and in Nevada courts it works.

NRS Chapter 163 is the general trust statute, and it is the better reason to use Nevada.

Almost everything genuinely valuable about Nevada as a trust jurisdiction — perpetual duration, directed trusts, decanting, non-judicial settlement, no state income tax — comes from Chapter 163 and has nothing to do with the DAPT statute. The DAPT statute is the part that does not travel.

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Key Points

• Two chapters, two different things. Ch. 166 is the DAPT. Ch. 163 is the general trust law.
• Ch. 166 requires a Nevada trustee when the settlor is a beneficiary. Ch. 163 does not.
• ⚠️ Nevada law can govern how your trust is read and still not govern what a creditor can reach. That is Huckaby, decided in March 2026.
• The Nevada DAPT worked in Klabacka — a Nevada court, Nevada parties. That case is usually cited backwards.
• In Kilker, Nevada’s own fraudulent transfer act defeated the Nevada argument.
• Real property is the hardest problem. Situs law governs, and you cannot move dirt.

The Two Chapters

Chapter 166 — the DAPT statute

Nevada is one of roughly twenty states with a domestic asset protection trust statute. It lives in NRS Chapter 166, “Spendthrift Trusts.”

One provision drives the entire Nevada trust company industry. If the settlor is a beneficiary of the trust, at least one trustee must be a natural person who resides and is domiciled in Nevada, or a Nevada trust company.

That requirement exists for a reason. It establishes a basis for Nevada to administer the trust — and, candidly, it supports the trust company business that has grown up around the statute.

Chapter 163 — the general trust statute

Chapter 163 predates Chapter 166 and contains no Nevada trustee requirement at all.

Creating a trust under Chapter 163 requires a declaration of intent to create a trust and the contribution of property. That is essentially the whole formality.

So the common belief that “a Nevada trust requires a Nevada trustee” is wrong. It is true of Chapter 166. It is not true of Nevada trust law generally.

Why that distinction matters

Nevada is a genuinely strong trust jurisdiction, and the reasons have almost nothing to do with asset protection:

No state income tax, so a Nevada trust answers only to federal tax. Perpetual duration, which is what makes real dynasty planning possible. Directed trusts, which most states still do not permit. A clear decanting regime for fixing instruments that no longer fit. An established non-judicial settlement process, so ambiguities get corrected without going to court. And digital execution, which Nevada adopted early.

Every one of those is Chapter 163. You get them whether or not you ever invoke the DAPT statute.

⚠️ What Happened in Huckaby

United States v. Huckaby, No. 2:23-cv-00587-DAD-JDP (E.D. Cal. Mar. 2, 2026). This is the most useful recent decision on what a Nevada trust does for a non-Nevada asset, and the reasoning is more precise than the commentary around it.

Robert Huckaby and Joyce Tritsch bought property in South Lake Tahoe, California, in 2005, as joint tenants.

On October 17, 2011 they created the Circle H Bar T Trust and transferred the property into it the same day. They were the settlors, the trustees, and the sole beneficiaries during their lifetimes.

In 2018 a judgment entered against Huckaby for failure to honor IRS levies. By mid-2025 the balance was $87,959.84. The United States sued to enforce its judgment lien against his one-half interest.

The court agreed with the defendants about Nevada law

This is the part that gets flattened in most summaries. The defendants argued the trust was governed by Nevada law, because the instrument designated it as a Nevada spendthrift trust.

“To the extent that defendants argue that the Trust should be constructed in accordance with Nevada law, they are correct.”

Under Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws §277, an instrument creating a trust of an interest in land is construed under the law the instrument designates. Nevada law governed what the document meant.

And then it did not matter

“However, the issue before the court is not a matter of interpreting the Trust but instead whether the land which is held in that trust can be reached by a plaintiff creditor.”

On that question, §280 controls:

“[w]hether the interest of a beneficiary of a trust of an interest in land is assignable by him and can be reached by his creditors, is determined by the law that would be applied by the courts of the situs.”

The property sat in California. California law decided what a creditor could reach.

Under California Probate Code §15304, a settlor cannot also be a beneficiary of a spendthrift trust — California voids self-settled trusts “to prevent individuals from placing their property beyond the reach of their creditors while at the same time still reaping the bounties of such property.” In re Moses, 167 F.3d 470, 473 (9th Cir. 1999).

The judgment lien reached Huckaby’s one-half interest. Foreclosure was authorized.

The timing argument failed, and the timing fact was worse

Defendants argued §15304 should not apply because the transfer predated the lien.

“Defendants cite no authority in support of this proposition and the court cannot identify any provision within §15304 that would limit its effects to land held in trust following incurrence of a lien.”

And in a footnote, the government pointed out that the property went into the trust roughly one month after Huckaby was served with the IRS levy that produced the judgment. The court noted it and said it did not need to reach it. The trust failed on its structure alone.

★ What the court refused to do

Three requests were denied, and the denials matter. The government asked the court to declare the defendants held title as alter egos or nominees. Denied. It asked the court to declare the transfer void. Denied — citing §15304(a): “The invalidity of the restraint on transfer [against creditors] does not affect the validity of the trust.” It asked for a declaration that the defendants were the true owners as joint tenants. Denied.

So the trust survived. What died was the spendthrift protection as against this creditor, for this asset, under this state’s law. That is a narrower holding than “the Nevada trust was invalid,” and the narrower version is the accurate one.

⚠️ Klabacka Is Usually Cited Backwards

Klabacka v. Nelson, 133 Nev. 164, 394 P.3d 940 (Nev. 2017). You will see this described as the case where a Nevada DAPT failed against support obligations. It is the opposite.

A Nevada divorce involving two Nevada self-settled spendthrift trusts. The district court awarded alimony and child support and ordered them paid from the husband’s trust.

The Nevada Supreme Court vacated those awards precisely to the extent they ran against the trust:

“the district court’s alimony award is affirmed in part but vacated to the extent it is awarded against Eric’s Trust instead of Eric in his personal capacity”

“the district court’s child support award is affirmed in part but vacated to the extent it is awarded against Eric’s Trust instead of Eric in his personal capacity”

The court also held the district court erred in ordering the husband’s personal obligations to be paid by his trust, and erred in equalizing the trust assets.

Read honestly, Klabacka is the strongest DAPT decision in the country. The obligations had to be collected from Eric personally. The trust was not the source.

And that is exactly the point worth drawing. Nevada parties, Nevada trusts, Nevada assets, a Nevada court applying Nevada law. Under those conditions the statute did what it was written to do. Change any of those conditions and you are in Huckaby.

Where Nevada’s Own Law Cut the Other Way

Kilker v. Stillman, No. G045813, 2012 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 8542 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. Three, Nov. 26, 2012). ⚠️ This opinion is unpublished. California Rule of Court 8.1115(a) prohibits citing or relying on it. I include it because the reasoning is instructive, not because it is authority.

A soils engineer transferred California real property into a Nevada-law trust in 2004. In 2008 a pool he had worked on failed, and a $92,500 negligence judgment followed.

On appeal he argued the trust was formed under Nevada law, which authorized the transfer, and that his “reasonable belief” that he was “engaging in lawful asset protection” negated fraudulent intent.

The court answered with Nevada’s statute, not California’s:

Nevada “has also enacted the UFTA (Nev. Rev. Stat., § 112.140 et seq.) ‘to further the substantive social policy of assuring that the efforts of judgment creditors and others to satisfy their claims will not be defeated by fraudulent transfers.’”

That is the part worth sitting with. The protective statute and the fraudulent transfer act live in the same code. Choosing Nevada does not import only the helpful half.

The court also found intent from three facts under Cal. Civ. Code §3439.04(b): he retained control of the property, he transferred assets to the trust, and he received no consideration. And it found the claim invalid on an independent alter ego ground.

Read next: Case Summary: Kilker v. Stillman

So Do Nevada Asset Protection Trusts Work?

In Nevada, against Nevada parties, with Nevada assets, in front of a Nevada judge — the statute performs. Klabacka is the proof.

Outside those conditions, the statute is doing less than people think.

For real property, situs law governs creditor access, and no instrument can change where land sits. Huckaby is the clean statement of that. For fraudulent transfer analysis, every DAPT state has also adopted the UFTA, so the forum’s protective statute and its avoidance statute arrive together. Kilker illustrates it. And a court with personal jurisdiction over the settlor is not confined to the asset. It can direct the person.

None of this is a criticism of Nevada. It is a description of what a state statute can reach. A legislature can tell its own courts how to treat a trust. It cannot tell California’s courts how to treat California dirt.

What This Means for Structure

The useful conclusion is not “avoid Nevada.” It is that Nevada solves a different problem than most people think they are buying.

Chapter 163 makes Nevada a strong trust jurisdiction — perpetual duration, directed trusts, decanting, non-judicial settlement, no state income tax. Those matter most for multigenerational planning, where trust duration is the whole question. They have nothing to do with whether a creditor can reach the assets.

Chapter 166 is the part sold as protection, and it is the part that depends on a Nevada forum you cannot guarantee. Klabacka shows it working where Nevada courts control. Huckaby shows what happens when they do not.

And that is the limit no domestic statute can cross. If the question is whether a court’s own law reaches the asset, the answer cannot come from a sister state that has adopted the same uniform acts and whose protective statute yields to situs law on real property. It has to come from outside U.S. jurisdiction entirely.

That is a structural problem, and it is why domestic-only planning has a ceiling.

The Bridge Trust® answers it on two separate tracks, and the distinction matters. Legally it is an offshore trust — established under Cook Islands law, also registered in Belize, with a pre-established offshore successor trustee in the Cook Islands or Nevis. For tax purposes only, it is classified as a domestic trust under IRC §7701, so it files as a U.S. grantor trust with no foreign trust reporting and the §1014 step-up preserved.

Those are two different questions and they have two different answers. Where the trust sits legally determines what a creditor has to do to reach it. How it is classified for tax determines what you file. A domestic asset protection trust gives you a domestic answer to both — which is why the second one is easy and the first one is the problem.

Read next: What Is the Bridge Trust®? A Plain-English Guide to Hybrid Asset Protection

FAQs

Does a Nevada trust require a Nevada trustee?
Under Chapter 166, yes — if the settlor is a beneficiary, at least one trustee must be a Nevada-domiciled individual or a Nevada trust company. Under Chapter 163 there is no such requirement, which is why the belief that every Nevada trust needs a Nevada trustee is incorrect.

Did the Nevada trust fail in Huckaby?
Not exactly, and the distinction matters. The court refused to void the transfer, refused to find alter ego or nominee status, and refused to declare the defendants joint tenants. What it held is that California law — not Nevada law — determined whether a creditor could reach California land, and under §15304 the spendthrift protection was void against that creditor.

Did not Klabacka hold that a Nevada DAPT cannot protect against child support?
No. The Nevada Supreme Court vacated the alimony and child support awards to the extent they were entered against the trust rather than against Eric personally. It is a decision in which the Nevada structure held.

Can I use a Nevada trust for California real estate?
You can hold it there, and Nevada law will govern how the instrument is construed. But under Restatement §280, creditor access to land is determined by the law of the situs. For California property, that is California law.

What about timing?
In Huckaby the transfer happened about a month after the IRS levy was served, and the court did not even need that fact. In Kilker the transfer came four years before any claim and still failed, because the court found future creditors reasonably foreseeable. Timing is necessary and it is not sufficient.

Is a Nevada trust worth using at all?
Yes, for the Chapter 163 advantages. The question is what you are relying on it for.

The Bottom Line

Nevada wrote a good statute and its courts honor it. Klabacka shows a Nevada self-settled trust doing exactly what the legislature intended, in the forum the legislature controls.

The problem was never Nevada. It is that most people with assets worth protecting do not live, invest, or get sued exclusively in Nevada.

I spent the early part of my career on the plaintiff’s side of civil litigation. The structures that came apart came apart for the same two reasons every time: the debtor still controlled what he claimed to have given away, or he built it after the claim was already in view.

Huckaby did both, about a month apart.

Structure before stress.

📞 For a confidential legal consultation, contact Bradley Legal Corp. at (888) 773-9399, or complete the intake questionnaire at btblegal.com.

By: Brian T. Bradley, Esq. — National Asset Protection Attorney

Case and Statutory References

United States v. Huckaby, No. 2:23-cv-00587-DAD-JDP (E.D. Cal. Mar. 2, 2026)
Klabacka v. Nelson, 133 Nev. 164, 394 P.3d 940 (Nev. 2017)
Kilker v. Stillman, No. G045813, 2012 Cal. App. Unpub. LEXIS 8542 (Cal. Ct. App., 4th Dist., Div. Three, Nov. 26, 2012) (unpublished — not citable under Cal. Rules of Court, rule 8.1115(a))
In re Moses, 167 F.3d 470 (9th Cir. 1999)
United States v. Campbell, 2013 WL 3490740 (E.D. Cal. July 10, 2013)
In re Schwarzkopf, 626 F.3d 1032 (9th Cir. 2010)
NRS Chapter 163; NRS Chapter 166; Nev. Rev. Stat. §112.140 et seq.
Cal. Prob. Code §15304; Cal. Civ. Code §3439.04(b)
Restatement (Second) of Conflict of Laws §§277, 280

This article is general legal information, not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship. It describes decisions on their own facts and records. Choice-of-law, spendthrift, and fraudulent transfer analysis are fact-specific and vary by jurisdiction. No structure guarantees a result. Consult a licensed attorney about your circumstances.