Preface to the 1997 Edition

This edition accommodates important developments in the law of trusts since October 1995. (Information contained in the April 5, 1996 Tentative Draft of the Restatement (Third) of Trusts, Parts I and 2, for example, has been woven in as appropriate). Text and citations (e.g., the Standard Charge Schedules of Corporate Trustees) have been corrected, updated, and in some cases enriched.

The following topics have been added: Bonds and Sureties, the Beneficiary's Right to Legal Fees from the Trust Estate, the Trustee's Discharge in Bankruptcy, the Missing Beneficiary, the Duties of the Trustee of a Revocable Inter Vivos Trust, Where the Trust Is Recognized Outside the United States, When a Guardian ad Litem Is Needed, the Offshore Asset Protection Trust, and the Duties of the Bankruptcy Trustee.

These topics were added in the 1996 Edition and are continued in this edition: The Prudent Investor and the Charitable Corporation, Duty to Defend the Trust, Rethinking Traditional Principles of Income Allocation, Whom Does Counsel Represent? Why More Than One Trust? (How Tax Considerations Can Lead to Systems of Trusts), Trust Principles Applicable to the Mutual Fund, What Is a Grantor Trust?, Structured Settlement Trust, and The Life Insurance Trust.

Another checklist joins the Prudent Investor's Code of Conduct. This one appears at § 8.2.4 (Trust Termination Checklist). It is designed to assist the trustee in the difficult and dangerous job of winding up the affairs of a trust that has terminated.

In recognition of the sad fact that trusts have all but disappeared from the required curriculum of American law schools, there is now a section on trust-related doctrines ancient and modern. The focus is on applications that today's trustee needs to understand. A brief treatment is given to each of the following: the Statute of Uses, the Doctrine of Worthier Title, the Rule in Shelley's Case, the Statute of Elizabeth (Charitable Uses), the Statute of Frauds, the Parole Evidence Rule, the Claflin Doctrine, the Rule Against Accumulations, the Doctrine of Independent Legal Significance, the Loring Exemption, and the Rule in Clayton's Case.

The 1997 Edition continues the 1996 Edition's practice of including some materials on the estate tax; however, it should be emphasized that the Handbook is not a tax treatise. We cover only those aspects of the estate tax that in some way relate to how a trustee carries out his ongoing common law fiduciary responsibilities.

The appendix containing a Catalog of Multi-State Charts, Surveys, and String Citations, which first appeared in the 1996 Edition, has almost doubled in size. Again, the reader should understand that the charts and studies themselves are not reprinted in the Handbook. This feature was added to accommodate those readers who want the Handbook to cover the particulars of local law, without sacrificing the clarity, brevity, integration, or national scope that the vast majority of readers consider to be the Handbook's greatest strength.

Finally, this edition's index has many more entries (and is better integrated) than those of earlier editions.

Charles E. Rounds, Jr

October 1996