A member asked almost 9 years ago

Trustee acting inappropriately

My father is the trustee of a discretionary trust for me and my siblings, which contains the assets our mother put there. I feel though that this is not appropriate because he is not impartial. Is this right?

Nathan Yii
Principal Lawyer, SMSF Specialist Advisor at Nathan Yii Lawyers - Structuring & Estate Planning Law

Trustees of discretionary trusts are bound to act on behalf of the broad discretionary beneficiary class and are bound to consider all the beneficiaries in exercising discretion to make distributions of income, capital and when investing moneys. A mere discretionary beneficiary, to the extent that they haven't been allocated any income/capital does not have any proprietary rights to income or capital of the trust. Those beneficiaries are mere discretionary beneficiaries and only have a right of due administration of the trust estate at law (ie they must be considered by the trustee when the trustee makes distributions). The trustee is generally not bound to give its reasons for the exercise of discretion, and can choose to make equal, unequal or no distributions to a particular beneficiary and wouldn't be seen to do anything wrong given the discretionary nature of the trust.

However, having said the above, the terms of the trust deed need to be examined by a lawyer in detail to confirm whether an aggrieved beneficiary has any other recourse. For instance, the terms of the trust may provide for an "appointor" who is the party (separate from the trustee), who is able to appoint and remove the trustee, thus having overall control.

Contact a lawyer to carefully review the terms oftrust for this purpose. Also contact the trust's accountant to get a copy of the latest balance sheetsshowing any unpaid present entitlements/loan accounts owing to particular beneficiaries.

Answered almost 9 years ago   Legal disclaimer

Val Antoff Mark Lipshutz
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