The grant
A trustee, without authorization by the court, may, except as limited or restricted by this code, exercise:
(a) Powers conferred by the terms of the trust.
(b) Except as limited by the terms of the trust:
1. All powers over the trust property that an unmarried competent owner has over individually owned property.
2. Any other powers appropriate to achieve the proper investment, management, and distribution of the trust property.
3. Any other powers conferred by this code.
Section 736.0815(1), Florida Statutes. Enacted in 2006 and never amended since.
Start with the opening words. Without authorization by the court. A Florida trustee does not go to a judge to sell a house, change an investment or make a distribution. That is one of the real differences between administering a trust and administering a probate estate, and it is why trust disputes tend to surface after the fact rather than before.
Then note how the limits are layered. Everything is subject to what the Code restricts. The three broad grants in paragraph (b) are additionally subject to what the trust says. But the powers conferred by the trust itself, in paragraph (a), are not qualified by the trust, which would be circular.
The word doing the most work
Paragraph (1)(b)1. is the sweeping one. It reaches all powers over the trust property that an unmarried competent owner has over individually owned property.
Both adjectives are deliberate. Competent is obvious. Unmarried is the interesting one, and it is there because a married owner in Florida is not free to deal with property as they wish. Homestead cannot be conveyed or mortgaged without the spouse joining. Measuring a trustee against an unmarried owner strips those constraints out of the comparison, so the benchmark is ownership without the complications marriage adds.
That is a benchmark, not a licence. It tells you the outer edge of what a trustee can do with trust property, which is a different question from what they may properly do with it.
The leash
The exercise of a power is subject to the fiduciary duties prescribed by this code.
Section 736.0815(2), Florida Statutes.
One sentence, and it is why the grant above is not as alarming as it first reads. Power and propriety are separate questions. A trustee who answers a complaint by saying the statute permitted the transaction has addressed only the first, and the fiduciary duties are where the second lives. They are the duty to administer in good faith under section 736.0801, loyalty under section 736.0802, impartiality under section 736.0803, prudence under section 736.0804.
The relationship runs the other way too. Because the trustee holds such wide powers without needing anyone’s approval, the duties are doing nearly all the protective work. Chapter 736 does not restrain trustees by limiting what they can do. It restrains them by defining what they owe.
What the courts have used it for
Our review located two documents citing this section, one of which was invisible in a default search and appeared only when every precedential status was requested.
The Fifth District used it in 2023 to explain why a beneficiary could not sue a third party on the trust’s behalf.
Under section 736.0815, Florida Statutes (2021), the trustee is accorded ‘any other powers appropriate to achieve the proper investment, management and distribution of the property,’ as well as ‘any other powers conferred by the [Florida Trust Code].’ § 736.0815(1), Fla. Stat.
Roller v. Collins, No. 5D22-1114 (Fla. 5th DCA Oct. 20, 2023). The bracketed words are the court’s own substitution for the statute’s phrase “this code”. The opinion carries the legend “Not final until disposition of any timely and authorized motion under Fla. R. App. P. 9.330 or 9.331.”
That case held the trustee, not the beneficiaries, is the real party in interest to bring a claim belonging to the trust, absent a recognised exception such as a conflict of interest. The broad powers in this section, read with the specific power to prosecute and defend actions in section 736.0816(23), were how the court got there. So the practical use of this section so far has been about who controls the trust’s litigation, not about investment or distribution decisions.
The other document is a bankruptcy court order citing paragraph (1)(b) while working out whether an attorney stood in a fiduciary relationship. A trial level order, and not authority.
Neither construes the section. What an unmarried competent owner would have power to do in a contested case, and how far subsection (2) cuts back a power the trust expressly granted, are both undecided in Florida.