What the section permits
Ordinary trust law needs a beneficiary. Section 736.0402(1)(c) requires a definite beneficiary for a trust to be created at all, and part of the reason is practical rather than formal. Somebody has to be able to hold the trustee to account. A trust nobody can enforce is a gift with extra steps.
This section is one of three exceptions the Code lists, alongside charitable trusts and animal trusts.
Except as otherwise provided in s. 736.0408 or by another provision of law, the following rules apply:
(1) A trust may be created for a noncharitable purpose without a definite or definitely ascertainable beneficiary or for a noncharitable but otherwise valid purpose to be selected by the trustee. The trust may not be enforced for more than 1,000 years.
Section 736.0409, Florida Statutes, opening words and subsection (1).
Two distinct permissions sit in that sentence. A trust for a noncharitable purpose with no definite beneficiary. And a trust for a noncharitable but otherwise valid purpose to be selected by the trustee, which is broader still, because the purpose itself need not be fixed at the outset.
The kinds of arrangement this reaches are the ones that do not fit anywhere else, such as maintaining a family burial plot, preserving a collection or a property for its own sake, or funding an activity that benefits nobody in particular in a way the law would recognise as charitable.
The thousand year ceiling
A trust under this section may not be enforced for more than 1,000 years. That figure arrived with the 2022 amendment, part of Florida’s broader rewrite of the rule against perpetuities.
The limit exists because the usual control is missing. An ordinary trust ends when its beneficiaries’ interests run out. A purpose trust has no beneficiaries whose interests can expire, so without a cap it could run indefinitely, which is what the rule against perpetuities exists to prevent. Compare section 736.0408, where no time limit is needed because the trust ends with the last covered animal.
Who holds the trustee to account
A trust authorized by this section may be enforced by a person appointed in the terms of the trust or, if no person is appointed, by a person appointed by the court.
Section 736.0409(2), Florida Statutes.
This is the same solution the Code uses for animal trusts, and for the same reason. Something has to stand in for the beneficiary who would ordinarily do the enforcing.
One difference from the animal trust provision is worth noting. Section 736.0408(2) lets any person having an interest in the welfare of the animal ask the court to appoint or remove an enforcer. This section has no equivalent sentence. So where the trust names nobody, it is less obvious who would bring the matter to a court, and naming an enforcer and a successor in the instrument matters more here than almost anywhere else in the Code.
Subsection (3) then applies the same overfunding cap as the animal trust section. Property may be applied only to the intended use, except to the extent a court determines the value exceeds what that use requires, and the excess returns to the settlor or the settlor’s estate unless the trust says otherwise.
The one case, and what it actually shows
Our review located a single Florida decision citing this section, and it is instructive for how narrowly the section applies rather than for anything it holds.
In a 2021 Third District case about child support arrears and an educational trust for the parties’ adult son, a general magistrate and then the trial court had relied on this section. The Third District quoted it in full in a footnote and doubted it applied, because the trust did have someone who could be identified.
Pablo Jr. would be the only beneficiary of the instant trust, and therefore, there is an ascertainable beneficiary.
Delgado v. Delgado, No. 3D20-1119 (Fla. 3d DCA May 12, 2021). The opinion carries the legend “Not final until disposition of timely filed motion for rehearing” and no reporter citation had issued.
That is the right instinct about the section. It is a fallback for trusts that genuinely have no one to benefit, not a way of describing a trust whose beneficiary happens to be a single person. If somebody can be identified, the ordinary rules apply and this section is not in play.
A footnote on how we found that case, because it illustrates something about legal research. A section number search for section 736.0408, the animal trust provision, also returns this decision. It does so only because this section’s opening words cross-reference 736.0408, and the court quoted those words. The case has nothing to do with animals. A number appearing inside a court’s quotation of one statute is not a citation of every statute that quotation happens to name.
So nothing has been decided about how this section actually works. What counts as a noncharitable purpose that is otherwise valid, how a court should measure the amount required for the intended use over a horizon that may run centuries, and who may ask the court to appoint an enforcer where the instrument names nobody, are all open.