The Oregon legislature passed several amendments to the Oregon Uniform Trust Code (OUTC) some of which are listed and summarized below:
1. Settlor cannot waive notice to beneficiaries that contain information relating to termination of trust.
2. Among the current matters that may be resolved by nonjudicial settlement agreement will be added the following:
2.1 Modifying the trust including extending or reducing period of operation;
2.2 Allowing any interested person to file a settlement agreement and provides requirements for filing of, notice of and objections to the settlement agreement. The filing fee is $65 and the fee for filing an objection is $32.50.
3. Makes clear that a trust is not a charitable trust if the charitable interest is negligible such as would occur in many estate plans where a charity(ies) is named as the final contingent beneficiary in the event there is no one living to take the terminating distribution.
4. An irrevocable trust may be modified or terminated with consent of settlor and all beneficiaries with the approval of the court. This is best practice and now is mandated.
5. A modification or termination of the trust may be approved by the court even without the consent of all beneficiaries if the court finds the trust could be modified if all the beneficiaries consented and the non-consenting beneficiaries' interests are protected.
6. A revocable trust remains a revocable trust even if the settlor becomes financially incapable.
7. Amends the report due to qualified beneficiaries.The trustee report is due 6 months from the date the trust becomes irrevocable to a qualified beneficiary entitled to a specific item of property or a specific amount of cash.
8. The terms of the trust instrument may appoint an adviser for the purpose of directing or approving decisions made by the trustee and absolves the trustee from liability for loss in following the advisers instructions if so required by the trust instrument. The trustee's actions in carrying out the adviser's instructions are administrative in nature. The trustee need not monitor the adviser.
9. Other changes are mostly housekeeping in nature.
These amendments were sponsored by Committee on Judiciary at the request of the Oregon State Bar Estate Planning Section.
