How Does a Charitable Trust in West Palm Beach Differ From a Private Trust?
Do you plan on leaving a large portion of your estate to charity? Do you want your estate left for acharitable purpose? Have you considered starting a West Palm Beach charitable trust?These trusts have some different rules from other testamentary trusts. Do you know what they are? Take a look at this crash course in charitable trusts to learn more.
No Rule on Perpetuities
- Florida has an adapted rule against perpetuities, which limits the length of certain private trusts.
- Do you know if the rule applies to charitable trusts?
- Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that for public policy reasons the courts do not apply the rule to charitable trusts.
Identifiable Beneficiaries
- In order for your private West Palm Beach trust to be valid you will have to haveidentifiable beneficiaries.
- Do you know what that means?
- You cannot make a private trust that only applies to your needy relative, that’s to broad, who is needy?
- You have to identify the beneficiaries in a private trust but you do not in a charitable trust.
- In fact West Palm Beach requires that charitable trusts lack identifiable beneficiaries.
Cy Press Doctrine
- Lets say you make a charitable trust to research a disease what happens if that disease is cured?
- For example surely there were tons of charitable trusts aimed at eradicating polio what happens after Jonas Salk discovered a vaccine?
- Do the trusts terminate?
- Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that a court can reform or change the terms of a charitable trust to reflect changes in circumstances.
- Thus a charitable trust for polio may go to curing another disease that causes paralysis or another disease of large import for example cancer or AIDS.
Enforcement
- So if there are no identifiable beneficiaries whom are we going to have left to enforce a charitable trust?
- If the person who set up the trust is still alive that is one option but often the donor is deceased.
- The State Attorney also can enforce these trusts if a trustee is breaching their fiduciary duties in West Palm Beach.