Powers of attorney and trust instruments have each been the subject of many an estate plan. They each have also been the subject of multiple estate litigations. In combination, the two have served as fodder for controversies surrounding the agent’s authority over the trust and its terms. Pursuant to the provisions of Uniform Trust Code §602(c), a settlor’s agent acting under a power of attorney can revoke or amend a revocable trust, when authorized by the terms of the trust or the terms of a power of attorney.[1] New York has no comparable statute under the EPTL or the SCPA, or, for that matter, under the General Obligations Law. Stemming from this silence, came two decisions that addressed the issue, albeit with different results; the first, Matter of Goetz, 8 Misc 3d 200 (Sur Ct, Westchester County 2005), in the context of a revocable trust, and the second, Matter of Perosi v. LiGregi, 98 AD3d 230 (2d Dept 2012) in the context of an irrevocable trust. Both decisions provide valuable instruction for drafters and litigators.
In Goetz, the petitioner, a child of the decedent, contended that the decedent’s spouse lacked authority, as his attorney-in-fact, to amend a revocable trust created by the decedent, in order to confer upon herself a limited power of appointment over the trust remainder. The subject power of attorney was executed in 1995 and provided the agent with the full authority included in the form at the time.
While the terms of the trust instrument, as originally executed, divided the trust principal equally among the grantor’s four children, the amendment in issue provided the grantor’s spouse with a limited power of appointment over the principal exercisable in favor of any one or more of the children as she determined. Several days after the amendment was drafted, it was signed by the decedent’s spouse, as his agent. Shortly thereafter, the decedent, who was ill at the time, passed away. Two years following the decedent’s death, his spouse passed away leaving a last will and testament expressly disinheriting the petitioner, and exercising the power of appointment in favor of her other three children.
The petitioner maintained that the trust amendment was invalid and exceeded the authority granted the decedent’s spouse under the power of appointment. The respondent, the executor of both the decedent’s and his spouse’s estates, claimed that the trust amendment was consistent with the decedent’s expressed wishes and testamentary plan, and was within the scope of the powers conferred upon the decedent’s spouse as his attorney-in-fact.
The court rejected the respondent’s position, and declared the trust amendment invalid, opining that a grantor’s power of revocation is generally a personal right that terminates upon death, unless otherwise provided in the trust instrument. The subject trust contained no such provision. Moreover, recognizing a revocable trust as the lifetime equivalent of a will, the court was troubled by a ruling that would sustain an agent’s authority to essentially alter a principal’s testamentary plan.
Finally, and most importantly, the court held that neither the trust instrument nor the power of attorney at issue explicitly granted the extent of authority sought to be invoked by the agent in amending the trust (see EPTL §7-1.17(b)), concluding “[i]nstruments must be construed as written by their terms, and courts may not add to or alter their provisions in the guise of interpreting them, nor interpolate into them broad grants of authority not included by the parties.”
In Matter of Perosi, the Second Department took a different view from the court in Goetz on the issue of the agent’s authority, and distinguished the opinion in reaching its result. It is questionable whether the distinctions drawn upon the Court are sound, given the rationale of Goetz, and the rules of construction invoked in Goetz in interpreting the subject trust and power of attorney.
As compared to the trust in Goetz, the trust instrument in Perosi was irrevocable, and was established for the benefit of the creator’s three children, one of whom was his attorney-in-fact. The trustee of the trust was the creator’s brother. The power of attorney executed by the creator granted his agent the authority to act with respect to “all matters”, as well as with respect to “estate transactions.” Additionally, the major gifts rider to the power authorized the agent to establish and fund revocable or irrevocable trusts, transfer assets to a trust, make gifts and act as grantor and trustee.
The attorney-in-fact, with the consent of the beneficiaries, executed an amendment to the trust pursuant to EPTL §7-1.9, which removed the named trustee and his successor, and designated two others, including the son of the attorney-in-fact, in their place. Two weeks thereafter, the creator of the trust died.
A petition was then filed by the new trustee and the attorney-in-fact for an accounting by the predecessor trustee, who moved to set aside the trust amendment on the grounds that the trust was irrevocable. The petitioners opposed, relying upon the provisions of EPTL §7-1.9, which permitted the amendment during the creator’s lifetime, with the beneficiaries’ consent.
The Supreme Court granted the trustee’s motion and denied the petition, finding that the power of attorney did not authorize the amendment of estate planning devices created prior to its execution. Further, the court held that the statutory right to revoke or amend an irrevocable trust was a personal right, which was not expanded by the terms of either the trust instrument or the power of attorney. The Second Department reversed.
The Court found that although the trust was irrevocable, the creator nevertheless possessed the authority to amend or revoke the instrument pursuant to EPTL §7-1.9. In view of the beneficiaries’ consent to the amendment, the Court was confronted with the issue of whether the power of attorney empowered the attorney-in-fact to effectuate the amendment on the creator’s behalf. Notably, despite the authority granted to the agent with respect to “estate transactions” and “all other matters”, the Court concluded that neither the power of attorney nor the General Obligations Law specifically authorized the attorney-in-fact to amend the trust. (cf. Goetz).
Nevertheless, as compared to the analysis in Goetz, this did not end the inquiry for the Court, which went on to observe that an attorney-in-fact is an alter ego of the principal, authorized to act with respect to any and all matters, with the exception of those which by their nature, public policy, or otherwise, require personal performance. The Court noted that these matters would include the execution of a principal’s Will, the execution of a principal’s affidavit upon personal knowledge, or the entrance into a principal’s marriage or divorce.
Finding that the amendment of the trust by the attorney-in-fact did not fall into any one of these categories, the Court concluded that since the trust did not prohibit the creator from amending the trust by way of his attorney-in-fact, “the attorney-in-fact, as the alter ego of the creator”, properly did so.
Notably, in reaching this result, the Court distinguished Goetz on two grounds; the first, to the extent that it relied on the principal that the power of revocation was a personal, not delegable right; and the second, that the Goetz trust specifically reserved to the creator the right to amend or revoke the trust. Nevertheless, despite these purported distinctions, it is difficult to reconcile the results in in Perosi and Goetz.
Indeed, both courts were concerned with the fact that neither the language of the trusts or the powers of attorney at issue authorized the agent to amend or revoke the trust instrument. Moreover, the fact, mentioned by the Perosi court, that the creator in Goetz reserved in the instrument a power to revoke or amend its terms, should not be considered a distinguishing factor that would justify a contrary result, since the trust in Perosi was irrevocable, and thus, would not have given the creator that right. Nevertheless, like the instrument in Goetz, the statute, EPTL §7-1.9, relied upon in Perosi, which authorized the trust amendment, also did not confer that right upon an attorney-in-fact. However, rather than end the inquiry, as the court did in Goetz, that omission served as a basis for the Perosi court to find that the attorney-in-fact could amend the trust, a result antithetical to the principle enunciated in Goetz, which cautioned against “interpolating instruments into broad grants of authority not included by the parties.”
With the foregoing in mind, it would seem that the more critical distinction between the opinions in Goetz and Perosi is the fact that the former involved a revocable trust- – a testamentary substitute — and, as such, the equivalent of a will, which both the courts in Perosi and Goetz, recognized could not be amended or revoked by an attorney-in-fact.
The distinction aside, the lesson to be learned from both Goetz and Perosi is to insure that the language of a trust and/or power of attorney be specific as to the extent of the agent’s authority to amend or revoke the instrument.
[1] Although not yet adopted in New York, a New York Uniform Trust Code has been the subject of significant analysis by the New York State Bar Association and the New York City Bar Association.
