A section whose only job is to leave something alone
This part does not affect the power of a court to relieve a trustee from any restrictions on the powers and duties that are placed on the trustee by the governing instrument or applicable law for cause shown and on complaint of the trustee, the Attorney General, or an affected beneficiary and notice to the affected parties.
Section 736.1207, Florida Statutes.
Part XII imposes a detailed set of duties on charitable trustees, mostly borrowed from federal tax law, and creates its own machinery for opting out and amending. A reader could reasonably conclude that it is a complete code for these trusts.
This section says it is not. The court’s power to permit deviation survives it.
The Trust Code does this in several places. Section 736.0106 preserves the common law of trusts and principles of equity generally. Section 736.04113(4) says the judicial modification provisions are in addition to, and not in derogation of, common law rights to modify or terminate a trust. This is the same instinct applied to this Part.
Three complainants, and the middle one is the interesting one
The section names who may bring the application.
- The trustee, which is the ordinary case. A trustee facing a restriction that has become impossible or self defeating asks the court for relief.
- The Attorney General, consistent with the office’s role throughout Florida charitable trust law.
- An affected beneficiary.
That last category repays attention in a charitable context. In a family trust it is obvious who the beneficiaries are. In a charitable trust the beneficial interest may be held by a class, by charities not yet selected, or by the public generally. Who counts as an affected beneficiary is not defined here, and it connects to the standing questions the Fifth District and the First District have addressed in the litigation covered on our section 736.0405 page.
The standard, and both sources of restriction
Relief is available for cause shown, on notice to the affected parties. Those are the only stated conditions, and neither is elaborated.
Note that the restrictions covered come from two places, the governing instrument and applicable law. So this is not merely a power to disapply an inconvenient clause in a trust deed. On its face it reaches restrictions imposed by law as well.
How far that goes against the duties in section 736.1204 is a real question, because those duties exist to keep a foundation compliant with federal tax law, and a Florida court relieving a trustee of them would not relieve the foundation of the corresponding federal exposure. A court could excuse the Florida duty and leave the federal consequence untouched, which is a reason to think any such application would be approached cautiously.
No Florida court has cited this section
A search returns no citing documents at any precedential status in any court we searched. Because every section of this Part returned the same, we tested the search before publishing the result and confirmed it returns hits for sections that have case law.
Savings clauses are rarely cited by name. A court exercising a deviation power relies on its equitable jurisdiction and on the modification provisions, and has little reason to cite a sentence confirming that a Part it is not applying did not take that jurisdiction away.
The section still does useful work. If a party argued that Part XII occupied the field for charitable trusts, this sentence is the answer, and it was put there in anticipation of exactly that argument.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does section 736.1207 do?
It preserves the power of a court to relieve a trustee from restrictions on the trustee's powers and duties placed there by the governing instrument or by applicable law, for cause shown, on complaint of the trustee, the Attorney General or an affected beneficiary, and on notice to the affected parties.
Who can bring such an application?
Three categories of complainant are named. They are the trustee, the Attorney General, and an affected beneficiary.
What is the standard?
For cause shown. The section does not define it, and there is no Florida decision construing this provision.
Does it cover restrictions imposed by statute as well as by the trust?
Yes. The section refers to restrictions placed on the trustee by the governing instrument or applicable law, so both sources are within it.
Is this the same as modifying the trust?
Not quite. Deviation relieves a trustee from a restriction on powers and duties, typically to allow an act the instrument forbids or omits. Modification under sections 736.04113 and 736.04115 changes the trust's terms. The two overlap in practice and the routes are pleaded together.
Has a Florida court cited this section?
No. Our review found no citing decision at all, which is unsurprising for a savings clause.
Common Situations
A restriction in the trust has become unworkable. Deviation is available on cause shown.
Someone says this Part is a complete code. This section says it is not.
You are wondering who can apply. The trustee, the Attorney General, or an affected beneficiary.
The restriction comes from statute, not the trust. The section covers restrictions from applicable law too.
Sources of Law
- Section 736.1207, Florida Statutes (2025). Enacted by s. 12, ch. 2006-217; amended by s. 9, ch. 2017-155.
- Section 736.0106, Florida Statutes, preserving the common law of trusts and principles of equity.
- Sections 736.04113 and 736.04115, Florida Statutes, the judicial modification provisions.
- No Florida court has cited this section. Our review found no citing document at any precedential status. Before publishing that we confirmed the search returned a count rather than an error, ran the same query against two sections known to have case law and received hits from both, and searched our own case files independently.
- Our review searched the Florida Supreme Court, the Florida District Courts of Appeal, the Florida federal district courts, the Florida bankruptcy courts and the Eleventh Circuit on August 16, 2026, requesting every precedential status rather than the default view. We report a nil result as our own review and not as a certainty, and we confirm that a section number actually appears in a decision before relying on it, having now found three search results for statutes whose numbers appear nowhere in the opinions returned.
- Decisions discussed here are published opinions in other parties’ cases. They are not matters handled by this firm and they predict nothing about any reader’s case. No commercial citator pass has been run on this research.
Updated on August 16, 2026. Reviewed by Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., Fla. Bar No. 99502. Attorney Kevin Klagge represents families, businesses, and international clients in estate and tax planning, business structuring, and international law, with a focus on Florida legal tools. He litigates estate and business issues in court. General information about Florida law and published court decisions, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Reading this page does not make us your lawyers. Please do not send confidential details until we have connected.
