Decanting From Trusts With Perpetuities Savings Provisions

Estate planning practitioners have encountered ever-increasing changes to traditionally understood trust law. For example, modern legislation has altered state trust codes to repeal the rule against perpetuities as it applies to trusts, to authorize self-settled trusts, and to include trust decanting provisions, whereby trust assets may be distributed to other trusts. These changes present new opportunities for traditional estate planning vehicles.

These new laws, however, also create a previously uncharted landscape, rife with questions regarding how, and to what extent, they may be put to use. Once of these questions includes whether, and under what terms, the duration of a trust may be extended via trust decanting, particularly where a state has repealed its rule against perpetuities as it applies to trusts.

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