Talk:United States trust law

Untitled
A couple of comments to the general reviewing public since I have tried to enhance this article...
 * 1) Is the section on "Naming Conventions" in this article as currently emerging really useful or necessary?  What about the "Personal versus Institutional" section?
 * 2) Woudl the section describing the "Trust Industry" be better incorporated into another section of the article? If so, where?

Thanks.

Allen B. (talk) 19:03, 25 April 2008 (UTC)

Unsupported assertions
There are a number of assertions made on this page that are not supported by cited authority, and are contrary to my understanding of the law (in which I have been practicing for 30+ years).


 * The claim that lawyers prefer to create trusts in Massachusetts is something I have never before heard or seen, and seems very doubtful. The author may be confusing the Massachusetts business trust, which was popular for real estate holdings and other investments (but has declined in popularity as more states have enacted LLC and business trust statutes) with the usual kind of Subchapter J trusts.  Creating a Massachusetts trust is also possible only for inter vivos trusts and would be impossible for a testamentary trust, which is always going to be governed by the laws of the decedent's domicile.


 * The claim that trust are a form of contract is also questionable, and is undermined by the historical fact that trusts were originally of land and so arose out of the law of property, not contracts. To this day, I believe that trust law is more closely related to property law than contract law.


 * The idea that trust law is now mainly governed by statute is also questionable. Only 24 states have enacted a version of the Uniform Trust Code.  Even if you include California, NY, and Louisiana, which I believe have enacted comprehensive trust codes, you're still talking about only 27 of 50 states with a comprehensive codification of trust law.

Evansdb (talk) 21:46, 18 June 2011 (UTC)

Also, whoever wrote this article does not adequately understand the meaning and characteristics of a "grantor trust" as defined by the Code.