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ARTICLE · 12 AUGUST 2008

Varying A Trust Deed How Hard Can It Be?

Cooper Grace Ward
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Discretionary trust deeds are designed to provide clients with maximum flexibility and most modern deeds give the trustee wide powers of variation.

AustraliaFinance and Banking
Greg Cahill
Greg Cahill
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Discretionary trust deeds are designed to provide clients with maximum flexibility and most modern deeds give the trustee wide powers of variation.

However, it is always necessary to check the wording of the trust deed carefully to ensure that a proposed variation is within the scope of the trustee's powers.

This was illustrated in a recent Queensland Supreme Court decision (Jenkins v Ellett [2007] QSC 154).

In this case Mr George Jenkins was the trustee and principal of his family trust.

Exercising his powers of variation as trustee, he purported to remove himself as principal and appoint a replacement.

After his death this change of principal was successfully challenged by the executors of his estate.

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