Some administered charitable gifts may qualify as “charitable trusts” under the Uniform Trust Code (UTC) and as “institutional funds” under the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA). An “institutional...more
Consider the lawyer who lacks a working familiarity with trusts, and with estate planning generally. He prudently and ethically refers a client in need of an estate plan to a well-respected lawyer who also happens also to be...more
Intro. The Uniform Trust Code (UTC) is a mere aggregation of tweaks to the corner of equity jurisprudence that long ago gave birth to and currently stewards the trust relationship, hereinafter “the background trust law.”...more
When hostilities break out between individual co-trustees, incumbent trust counsel faces a representation conundrum. In §8.8 of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook (2025), see appendix below, we grapple with the...more
While PC software programs are a practical improvement over the trustee’s hard-copy ledger book, when it comes to keeping track of trust income and principal these programs still require serious clerical monitoring on the...more
Assume the deceased settlor of a trust had intended that his niece be included in the beneficiary class, but his estate-planning attorney had negligently made no provision for her in the governing instrument. After settlor’s...more
In an external contract-based or tort-based dispute between the trustee and a third party to the trust relationship, the beneficiaries are generally not necessary parties. But all beneficiaries (of an irrev. trust) whose...more
Many of my JDSUPRA postings, a full catalog of which may be found below, are about the doctrinal incoherence that is being inflicted on the institution of the trust by legislative intrusions into equity doctrine, intrusions...more
An incident of the trustee’s duty to be generally prudent, to account (or report) to beneficiaries, and to refrain from breaches of the duty of undivided loyalty, such as engaging in unauthorized self-dealing, is the...more
Section 415 of the Uniform Trust Code provides that even in the absence of ambiguity the court may reform the terms of a trust to conform the terms to the settlor’s intention if it is proved by clear and convincing evidence...more
The federal Corporate Transparency Act (CTA), effective January 1, 2024, whose constitutionality is currently being tested in the courts, follows in the footsteps of the IRC in that it creates a limited statutory exception...more
If the trustee in breach of trust conveys the trust property to a third party to the trust relationship, would the transferee be a necessary party to any action for breach of trust that the trust beneficiaries might bring?...more
A longstanding and critical incident of a trustee’s fiduciary duty of loyalty is the duty to vigorously defend the trust’s very existence, as well as all its material provisions (hereinafter “existence defense”), unless it...more
Now more than ever, the situs and principal place of administration of a trust has become a fluid concept. Trustees change, move, or open and close offices. As situs changes, the question often becomes “what law governs the...more
Revocable trusts are a ubiquitous part of modern US estate planning because they avoid the delay, cost and publicity inherent in probate administration and, in the international context, because of the certainty they provide...more
Effective Oct. 1, 2018, Maryland enacted a one-year statute of limitations for most breach-of-trust actions. To trigger the one-year limitations period, however, trustees must provide certain information to beneficiaries....more