Committee advances trust-code fixes addressing decanting, successor trustees and homestead reassessment

The Judiciary Committee reported favorably on Senate Bill 262, a set of technical clarifications to the Florida trust code intended to eliminate practitioner uncertainty and align trust rules with the probate code.

Senator Berman, sponsor of the bill, told the committee the measure makes four primary changes: it clarifies the authority of a trustee to "decant" (transfer assets into a second trust) and specifies that a trustee who decants is not the settlor of the second trust; it limits a successor trustee's ability to sue a former trustee to the same extent beneficiaries are barred from doing so; it puts the trust code provision on satisfaction/redemption of gifts into parity with the probate code by requiring written statements to show a gift was satisfied; and it clarifies that transferring homestead into a community trust is not a change of ownership for purposes of homestead reassessment.

Committee staff recommended, and the sponsor explained, a technical amendment (barcode 762,740) that states the bill's changes are clarifying and remedial so that retroactivity is permissible. The committee adopted that amendment without recorded debate. The Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of the Florida Bar was listed on an appearance form (Sarah Butters) and waived in support.

On the roll call the committee recorded nine yeas and zero nays; the committee reported the committee substitute for SB 262 favorably. No further amendments were adopted on the floor.