Designating it, and the connection required
Terms of a trust designating the principal place of administration of the trust are valid only if there is a sufficient connection with the designated jurisdiction. Without precluding other means for establishing a sufficient connection, terms of a trust designating the principal place of administration are valid and controlling if:
(a) A trustee’s principal place of business is located in or a trustee is a resident of the designated jurisdiction; or
(b) All or part of the administration occurs in the designated jurisdiction.
Section 736.0108(1), Florida Statutes. Enacted in 2006 and never amended since.
The two lettered routes are safe harbours, not the only ways in, since the subsection expressly does not preclude other means of establishing a sufficient connection. Note how modest paragraph (b) is. All or part of the administration occurring there is enough.
This matters beyond bookkeeping. The principal place of administration is a hinge for several other provisions. It appears in section 736.0204(3) as a venue option, and it runs all through section 736.0202, where most of the eight acts that submit a person to Florida jurisdiction are defined by reference to a trust having its principal place of administration in this state.
A choice of law clause does not set it
This is the point that most often catches people, and the Fourth District decided it in 2010.
Section 736.0108, Florida Statutes (2009), controls the determination of the trust’s principal place of administration.
However, this does not designate the “principal place of administration.” See § 736.0108(1). If the trust does not specify, then the principal place of administration is the trustee’s usual place of business. § 736.0108(2). According to the senior trust administrator’s affidavit, Illinois is the usual place of business.
Covenant Trust Co. v. Guardianship of Ihrman, 45 So. 3d 499 (Fla. 4th DCA 2010).
The trust in that case said its provisions "shall be construed and regulated" and their validity and effect determined by Illinois law. That is a governing law clause under section 736.0107, and it is not a designation of the place of administration. The court went to the default rule instead and found, on the trust administrator’s affidavit, that the usual place of business was Illinois. Same answer, different route, and the route matters when the two would diverge.
That determination was not incidental. It was the predicate for whether all interested parties could be bound in Illinois, which controlled whether the Florida proceeding could go forward at all.
A Fourth District decision from April 2026 reached the same proposition again, holding a trust’s choice of law provision immaterial because it did not specify where the trust must be administered. Notably that court supported the point with an Illinois authority rather than with this section.
The duty hiding among the machinery
A trustee is under a continuing duty to administer the trust at a place appropriate to its purposes and its administration.
Section 736.0108(4), Florida Statutes.
That is a fiduciary duty, and it is easy to read past because it sits between two procedural subsections. Where a trust is administered is not merely a fact about the trustee’s office. It is something the trustee must keep under review, and a trustee administering a Florida family’s trust from somewhere inconvenient and expensive to everyone concerned is answerable for that choice.
Moving it, and how a beneficiary stops that
Subsection (5) lets a trustee transfer the principal place of administration to another state, or to a jurisdiction outside the United States, without court approval. The controls are in the two subsections that follow.
Under subsection (6), the trustee must notify the qualified beneficiaries not less than 60 days before initiating the transfer, and the notice must contain five things. They are the destination jurisdiction, the new address and telephone number, an explanation of the reasons, the anticipated date, and the date, not less than 60 days after the notice, by which a qualified beneficiary must notify an objection.
The authority of a trustee to act under this section without court approval to transfer a trust’s principal place of administration is suspended if a qualified beneficiary files a lawsuit objecting to the proposed transfer on or before the date specified in the notice. The suspension is effective until the lawsuit is dismissed or withdrawn.
Section 736.0108(7), Florida Statutes.
Read that carefully, because it sets a real and unforgiving requirement. The suspension is triggered by filing a lawsuit, not by writing a letter of objection. A beneficiary who replies to the notice saying they object, and does nothing else, has not suspended anything, and the trustee may proceed. Given the transfer can be to a jurisdiction outside the United States, that is a distinction worth acting on quickly.
One Florida decision, and what is still open
Our review found four documents matching a search for this section, of which two are from 1993 and cannot be citing a statute that took effect in 2007. Of the remaining two, one is the Fourth District decision above and the other a federal trial level order.
So the questions the machinery raises are unanswered. What makes a connection sufficient outside the two safe harbours. What a trustee must do to satisfy the continuing duty in subsection (4), and whether a beneficiary can compel a transfer on that basis. Whether the 60 day notice is effective if it omits one of the five required items. And what happens where a beneficiary objects within time but files suit after the stated date.