Maryland Trust Act Preamble

NOTE: Only the Maryland Trust Act includes a Preamble.

WHEREAS, Trusts serve many useful purposes and have a long history in the Anglo–American legal system; and

WHEREAS, Codification of Maryland’s trust laws will benefit both the public and practitioners; and

WHEREAS, The fact that a beneficiary cannot compel distribution from a discretionary trust has justified not counting the trust assets in determining the beneficiary’s eligibility for need–based programs such as Medicaid, and not subjecting them to the estate tax when the beneficiary dies; and

WHEREAS, These advantages, and the fact that Maryland trusts may have perpetual existence and no limits on size, make it reasonable to expect the popularity of discretionary trusts to increase substantially, as well as their impact on public revenues and expenses; and

WHEREAS, By contrast, a beneficiary who is not also a trustee of a discretionary trust has few rights and little recourse to address abuses of power by a trustee; and

WHEREAS, A trust with no enforceable rights for a beneficiary is a trust in name only; and

WHEREAS, The Judiciary must be able to intervene aggressively to protect all trust beneficiaries; now, therefore,