🔑 NY EPTL 7-1.9: Revocation of Trusts

Overview

EPTL 7-1.9 provides a statutory mechanism for revoking or amending an otherwise irrevocable lifetime trust. The statute permits revocation or amendment only upon the written consent of all persons beneficially interested in the trust.

The provision is procedural in form but structural in consequence. Whether a trust can be revoked under EPTL 7-1.9 depends entirely on how the beneficial interests are drafted.

Statutory Text

§ 7-1.9 Revocation of trusts

(a) Upon the written consent, acknowledged or proved in the manner required by the laws of this state for the recording of a conveyance of real property, of all the persons beneficially interested in a trust of property, heretofore or hereafter created, the creater of such trust may revoke or amend the whole or any part thereof by an instrument in writing acknowledged or proved in like manner, and thereupon the estate of the trustees ceases with respect to any part of such trust property, the disposition of which has been revoked. If the conveyance or other instrument creating a trust of property was recorded in the office of the clerk or register of any county of this state, the instrument revoking or amending such trust, together with the consents thereto, shall be recorded in the same office of every county in which the conveyance or other instrument creating such trust was recorded.

(b) For the purposes of this section, a disposition, contained in a trust created on or after September first, nineteen hundred fifty-one, in favor of a class of persons described only as the heirs, next of kin or distributees (or by any term of like import) of the creator of the trust does not create a beneficial interest in such persons.

(c) A testamentary or lifetime trust wholly benefitting one or more charitable beneficiaries may be terminated as provided for by subparagraph two of paragraph (c) of section 8-1.1 of this chapter.

Notes