A sole beneficiary cannot be sole trustee–According to state trust law requirements, if the sole beneficiary is the sole trustee, the trust is invalid. A beneficiary can be a trustee only if there are other beneficiaries and/or other trustees.

Can one person be both trustee and beneficiary?

Yes, a trustee can also be a beneficiary of a trust. It’s fairly common for a trust beneficiary to also serve as trustee. For example, in a family trust created by two spouses, the surviving spouse will almost always serve as both a trustee and beneficiary.

Can a trustee be married to a beneficiary?

Once an irrevocable trust is funded, the trust property cannot be taken back by the grantor without the consent of the beneficiary. It is legal to name a beneficiary as trustee, such as a spouse.

Can a sole trustee be the sole beneficiary of a trust?

A sole trustee / sole beneficiary generally does not occur with a discretionary trust as it has a broader class of potential beneficiaries based upon the deed. A unit trust is more common and care must be taken – Its an accountant problem as few of them understand that issue.

Can a company be a beneficiary of a discretionary trust?

Yes, a corporate trustee can be the beneficiary of the trust – as long as you include the trustee’s name and their capacity. For example: ‘ABC Pty Ltd in its capacity as the trustee of the ABC Family Trust’. In this case, the trustee is effectively a beneficiary of the discretionary trust for the beneficiaries of the trustee’s own trust.

Can a surviving spouse be beneficiary of a living trust?

Does the typical marital trust for the surviving spouse fail because of the doctrine of merger when the surviving spouse is beneficiary and trustee of the marital trust? If true, then the majority of living trust based estate plans would be questionable because the same people initially serve as trustee and beneficiaries of their own living trusts.

Can a Trustmaker serve as a beneficiary?

Under this doctrine the trustmaker, or settlor, cannot serve as trustee and be a trust beneficiary because his interests as trustee and beneficiary would “merge” and the trust would not be a legal entity that is distinguished from the trustmaker individually.