Until recently, resolving issues relating to trusts where the governing instrument of the trust was silent concerning the matter was a complicated process. Generally, clients had to petition a court to interpret confusing terms in a trust, or to modify a trust, or to change a Trustee if no successor Trustee was named, or to do other things not spelled out in the trust agreement.
Since Maryland adopted the Maryland Trust Act, however, Trustees and beneficiaries can resolve matters without having to go to court. There are a number of statutory provisions that apply, including Estates and Trusts Code Section 14.5-111 which allows interested persons to enter into non-judicial settlement agreements.
A non-judicial settlement agreement may even be useful in cases where clients are unable to locate the trust document itself. Indeed, there are circumstances in which a non-judicial settlement agreement may be used to recreate the lost trust document so that property held in a trust bank account can be dealt with without the necessity of going to court, thereby saving clients time and money.
William M. Gatesman has worked with numerous clients to assist them in resolving trust problems by means of non-judicial settlement agreements.