What the section allows
Section 736.04115 is the broadest of Florida’s judicial modification provisions on its face. It does not require the petitioner to show that the trust’s purposes have failed or that circumstances changed. It asks only whether compliance with the terms is in the beneficiaries’ best interests.
Without regard to the reasons for modification provided in s. 736.04113, if compliance with the terms of a trust is not in the best interests of the beneficiaries, upon the application of a trustee or any qualified beneficiary, a court may at any time modify a trust that is not then revocable as provided in s. 736.04113(2).
Section 736.04115(1), Florida Statutes.
The catch sits two subsections later
Subsection (1) reads like a wide grant. Subsection (2)(a) narrows it considerably, and the two have to be read together.
The court shall exercise discretion in a manner that conforms to the extent possible with the intent of the settlor, taking into account the current circumstances and best interests of the beneficiaries.
Section 736.04115(2)(a), Florida Statutes.
So the beneficiaries’ best interests open the door and the settlor’s intent governs what the court does once inside. A petition that treats the first half of the statute as the whole of it tends to fail.
The only Florida decision construing the section
Our review located one Florida appellate decision applying section 736.04115. In Horgan v. Cosden a trust was to be held for the settlor’s son with distributions over time. The beneficiaries agreed among themselves that the trust should be distributed and wound up, and the trial court granted summary judgment terminating it, reasoning in the words the Second District quoted from its order that termination was in the beneficiaries’ best interest:
because it will preserve the assets held in the Trust by eliminating unnecessary expenses relating to trust administration. A continuation of the Trust would incur unnecessary expenses and trustee’s fees.
The trial court’s order, as quoted by the Second District in Horgan v. Cosden, 249 So. 3d 683 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018). This reasoning was reversed.
The appellate court took a different view of what the beneficiaries were actually asking for.
In essence, the beneficiaries simply prefer a different course of action than that chosen by the Settlor: they want their money now. But on this record, the desire to have the money now would be in direct contravention of the Settlor’s intent...
Based on the undisputed circumstances, as a matter of law, neither section 736.04113 nor section 736.04115 supports the termination of the Trust.
Horgan v. Cosden, 249 So. 3d 683 (Fla. 2d DCA 2018).
The court reversed and remanded with directions to enter judgment for the trustee denying termination. Note what was not enough, namely agreement among the beneficiaries, a real saving in fees and administrative cost, and a trial court prepared to grant the relief. A settlor who creates a trust that pays out over decades has by definition decided against handing over the money at once, and the Second District treated that decision as the thing the statute protects rather than an obstacle the statute removes.
One housekeeping point for anyone checking our work. This decision appears twice in the CourtListener database, once as a slip opinion carrying the not final legend and once as the reporter version. Same docket, same date, same panel, identical text. It is one decision, and we cite it once.
Trusts the section does not reach at all
Subsection (3) puts whole categories of trust outside the statute. Any trust created before January 1, 2001 is excluded outright, which removes a good deal of older planning from the section’s scope. Trusts created after that date are excluded where the beneficial interests must vest within the perpetuities period of section 689.225(2) and the instrument expressly prohibits judicial modification. Drafters who want to foreclose this route can say so, and it works.
Section 736.04115 was amended once, by ch. 2022-96, the same session law that reworked Florida’s rule against perpetuities. The provisions Horgan construed, subsections (1), (2) and (5), read today exactly as the Second District quoted them from the 2015 version.
One further note on the case law, because a section number search will turn it up. Minassian v. Rachins, 152 So. 3d 719 (Fla. 4th DCA 2014), mentions section 736.04115, but only inside a citation range while the court summarizes and rejects an argument that the statutory modification provisions are the exclusive means of changing a trust. It never applies the best interests standard to any facts, and it is not authority on this section. Its real subject is the validity of a trust protector’s modification power.