Lighthouse on
Modern Trust Design.
Trust design in one reference, from governing law and divided fiduciary structures to protectors, decanting, holding structures and tax, for the counsel who draft, administer and advise on modern trusts.
By the Lighthouse Editorial Board · First Edition
Why it matters
A modern trust divides the trustee’s work among several parties.
Directed trusts and protectors
The Uniform Directed Trust Act and the directed-trust statutes of Delaware, South Dakota, Nevada, Wyoming, Alaska and Tennessee, trust advisers, delegation and direction, and the powers, duties, succession and deadlock of trust protectors, including protectors in Cook Islands, Nevis and Belize trusts.
Changing the trust after it is signed
Judicial and nonjudicial modification, decanting under the Uniform Trust Decanting Act and the state statutes and its tax consequences, nonjudicial settlement agreements, migration and change of situs, and merger, division and reformation.
What the trust holds
Trust-owned entities, concentrated positions and special-holdings direction, closely held businesses, real estate, gold, art and collectibles, and digital assets.
Tax and protective design in the same book
Dynasty trusts and generation-skipping transfer tax design, spendthrift and self-settled trusts, the Wyoming qualified spendthrift trust, grantor-trust design and toggle powers, incomplete-gift nongrantor trusts, spousal lifetime access trusts and cross-border classification.
46 chapters · 5 appendices · 1,938 printed pages · 299 cases
Inside the pages
Set like the great treatises, built to be used.
Is the Protector a Fiduciary?
Figure 11.3 sorts the regimes by their default when the instrument is silent. Belize, Nevis, the Uniform Trust Code, the Uniform Directed Trust Act, Delaware, Wyoming and Nevada make the protector a fiduciary; the Cook Islands, South Dakota, Alaska and Arizona do not; Jersey, the Cayman Islands and Idaho state no default (¶ 1150.03).
Each regime is cited to its section, with its qualifications: the Uniform Trust Code excludes a holder who is a beneficiary, and Arizona treats the exercise of a protector's power as the exercise of a special power of appointment. In every regime the instrument may change the default, so the drafter should state the capacity for each power (¶ 1150.03).
Included in the appendices
Model Clauses and Forms
The appendices give counsel drafting material and the uniform acts the chapters rely on, each tied to the paragraphs that explain it.
Who wrote it
Written by the people who wrote the statutes.
Lighthouse on Modern Trust Design is prepared by the Lighthouse Editorial Board. Its Editor-in-Chief is one of the primary authors of the Cook Islands Limited Liability Companies Act and led the committee that drafted the 2015 amendments to the Nevis International Exempt Trust Ordinance.
The Board has contributed to limited-liability-company and asset-protection-trust legislation in Nevis, Belize, Wyoming, Delaware, Ohio and North Carolina, and draws on the practice of Lighthouse Trust, a multinational trust company established in 1982 and resident across nine jurisdictions.
Plans and pricing
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All payments are final and are not refunded; see the Library Terms. The library's treatises are reference works for professionals. They are not legal advice, and reading them creates no client relationship with Lighthouse Trust. Prices are in US dollars, and tax is added where it applies.
What's inside
10 Parts, from first principles to practice.
- Part IFoundationsChapters 1–5
- Part IIDivided Fiduciary StructuresChapters 6–10
- Part IIITrust ProtectorsChapters 11–15
- Part IVChanging the TrustChapters 16–21
- Part VDuration and Beneficiary DesignChapters 22–24
- Part VIInformation, Representation and ControlChapters 25–29
- Part VIIHolding StructuresChapters 30–35
- Part VIIISpendthrift and Protective DesignChapters 36–39
- Part IXTax ArchitectureChapters 40–43
- Part XPracticeChapters 44–46
- Appendices and TablesAppendices A–E
Lighthouse on Modern Trust Design
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Chapter 1, The Modern Trust: From Passive Conduit to Governed Structure, is open to every reader without a subscription.
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