Letting Go of the Dead Hand Part II: With Silent Trusts, All Might Not Be Quiet on the Western Front

With advancements in trust legislation, it is now possible to create trusts that entirely restrict a beneficiary‘s access to any information regarding the trust for extended durations.

Morris Nichols partner Todd Flubacher recently co-authored the second part of a series examining the drawbacks of trustor‘s dead hand control in trust planning with Niké Anani and Philip J. Hayes of Northern Trust, and Kristen Keffeler of Johnson Financial Group LLC.

In their Trusts & Estates Magazine article, the authors delve into the relatively recent emergence of “silent trusts” or “quiet trusts.“ Building upon the challenges outlined in the preceding article concerning traditional trust planning, the focus shifts to the implications of these newer trust structures. As trust laws have evolved, it is now possible to draft trusts that withhold information from beneficiaries for extended periods.

The full article is available here.

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Niké Anani, Todd A. Flubacher, Philip J. Hayes, and Kristin Keffeler, “Letting Go of the Dead Hand Part II: With Silent Trusts, All Might Not Be Quiet on the Western Front,” Trusts & Estates Magazine (March 2024)