The Massachusetts Supreme Judicial Court ruled in Morse v. Kraft that the trustee of an irrevocable trust who had full discretion to distribute trust principal "for the benefit" of a beneficiary could transfer the assets to a new trust without the consent of the beneficiaries or the court, provided that the recipient trust had the same distribution standard and only administrative modifications.
As a result of this decision, Massachusetts now has common law that may be relied upon to decant assets to new trusts. Massachusetts clients may find this helpful because Massachusetts does not currently have a statutory authorization for decanting.
