{"id":11538,"date":"2025-06-08T21:07:31","date_gmt":"2025-06-09T01:07:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=11538"},"modified":"2025-10-30T21:34:40","modified_gmt":"2025-10-31T01:34:40","slug":"beneficiary-substantially-complied-with-requirements-for-accepting-trusteeship","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=11538","title":{"rendered":"Beneficiary Substantially Complied with Requirements for Accepting Trusteeship"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The trust document stated that the beneficiary of a trust &#8220;shall become a Co-Trustee of his or her respective trust&#8221; upon reaching thirty years of age. By several emails sent to the trustee already serving and to the financial institution serving as custodian of the trust, a beneficiary who had reached age thirty asserted that he was a co-trustee and attempted to exercise powers as a co-trustee. Those emails &#8220;substantially complied&#8221; with the direction in the trust document that a person designated as a trustee qualify by a &#8220;written acceptance of the office.&#8221; Because the beneficiary became a trustee when he sent those emails, the purported appointment of a new co-trustee without his consent as a trustee, and an attempted change of situs, were both invalid. <em>John P. Middleton Trust<\/em>, 3 Fid.Rep.4th 46 (Montgomery O.C. 2025) (opinion and order); <em>John P. Middleton Trust (No. 2)<\/em>, 3 Fid.Rep.4th 170 (Montgomery O.C. 2025) (Pa. R.A.P. 1925 opinion), <em>on appeal<\/em>, 815 EDA 2025 (Pa. Super.).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[10\/26\/2025 Update: Revised to include citation to Pa. R.A.P. 1925 opinion.]<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>[For earlier opinions involving the same trust, see &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=10551\">Appeal of Emergency Trust Distribution Not Moot Because Jurisdictional Question Remained<\/a>&#8221; and &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=10497\">Dismissal of Answer and New Matter Is Not Appealable<\/a>.&#8221;  For earlier opinions involving the same settlor and beneficiary and similar issues but a different trust, see &#8220;<a href=\"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=10523\">Dismissal of Answer and New Matter for Lack of Standing Is Not Appealable<\/a>.&#8221;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The trust document stated that the beneficiary of a trust &#8220;shall become a Co-Trustee of his or her respective trust&#8221; upon reaching thirty years of age. By several emails sent to the trustee already serving and to the financial institution &hellip; <a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/?p=11538\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pmpro_default_level":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[748,249,322],"class_list":["post-11538","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-opinions","tag-co-trustees","tag-situs-of-trust","tag-trustee-appointment","pmpro-has-access"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11538","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=11538"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11538\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11933,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11538\/revisions\/11933"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=11538"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=11538"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/resources.evans-legal.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=11538"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}