The general rule, and it is generous
When Florida replaced former chapter 737 with the Trust Code, it had to decide what happened to the trusts, documents and lawsuits already in existence. This section is that decision.
(a) This code applies to all trusts created before, on, or after such date.
(b) This code applies to all judicial proceedings concerning trusts commenced on or after such date.
Section 736.1303(1), Florida Statutes, referring to July 1, 2007.
So the default is that the age of the trust does not matter. A trust signed in 1978 is administered under chapter 736 today, and a lawsuit filed about it is governed by chapter 736.
The Fourth District applied exactly that in 2025, in an appeal about whether a trust was entitled to a jury trial on a surcharge claim.
The Trust’s claims involved a trustee’s duties as set forth in Chapter 736, Florida Statutes (2016), the Florida Trust Code. The Code applies to “all trusts created before, on, or after” July 1, 2007, and “to all judicial proceedings concerning trusts” after that date.
Mastriana v. Brown Brothers Harriman Trust Co. (Fla. 4th DCA May 14, 2025), citing section 736.1303(1)(a) and (b).
The trust in that case dated from 2001. The court did not pause over it, which is the point. This section makes the question routine.
Proceedings already under way
Paragraph (c) handles the awkward case, a lawsuit already running when the law changed, and it does so with a standard rather than a rule. The code applies to those proceedings too, unless the court finds that applying a particular provision would substantially interfere with the effective conduct of the proceedings or prejudice the rights of the parties. Where it so finds, that provision does not apply and the superseded law does.
Notice how narrow the escape is. It operates provision by provision, not case by case. A court does not disapply the Code; it disapplies a particular section, and only where interference or prejudice is shown.
Nearly twenty years on this paragraph is spent, since a proceeding commenced before July 1, 2007 and still running would be remarkable. It is preserved here for completeness and because older decisions occasionally turn on it.
The paragraph that matters most today
Any rule of construction or presumption provided in this code applies to trust instruments executed before the effective date of this code unless there is a clear indication of a contrary intent in the terms of the trust.
Section 736.1303(1)(d), Florida Statutes.
This is the live one. The rules of construction in Part XI decide what a trust’s words mean, including who is inside a class gift, how a class divides, what happens when a beneficiary dies first, and what divorce does. Paragraph (d) says those rules reach documents written before the Code existed.
The escape is a clear indication of a contrary intent in the terms of the trust, which is the same test section 736.1101(2) applies generally. Intent expressed in the document wins. Intent asserted from outside it does not.
But paragraph (d) is a default and not an answer, and this is where careful reading pays. The whole subsection opens with except as otherwise provided in this code, and several sections do provide otherwise, with their own dates.
- Section 736.1105, on divorce, applies to revocable trusts of decedents who die on or after June 29, 2021.
- Section 736.1106, antilapse, has an intricate provision of its own, and a trust can fall outside both it and its predecessor.
- Section 736.1109, homestead, applies to decedents who die before, on, or after July 1, 2021, which is broader still.
- Section 736.1110, ademption by satisfaction, applies only to revocable trusts becoming irrevocable on or after July 1, 2025.
So the sequence when you are working on an older trust is to start here, then check whether the particular section carries its own date. It very often does.
What the Code leaves alone
Two provisions protect the past.
Acts already done. Paragraph (e) says an act done before July 1, 2007 is not affected by the Code. A distribution made, a notice given, a power exercised under the old law is judged by the old law.
Periods already running. Subsection (2) provides that where a right is acquired, extinguished or barred on the expiration of a period that had commenced to run under other law before July 1, 2007, that law continues to apply even if it has been repealed or superseded. A limitation clock that started under former chapter 737 finishes under former chapter 737.
Why this section matters to anyone doing research
There is a practical use for this section that has nothing to do with advising a client, and it has saved us repeatedly across this series.
July 1, 2007 is a filter. A decision issued before that date cannot be construing a chapter 736 section, because the chapter did not exist. When a database search for a section number returns a case from 1985, or 1938, or 1915, the digits belong to something else entirely, and no amount of reading will make it relevant.
Several of the sections in this series have search results that are entirely pre-Code. Knowing this date turns an afternoon of reading into a five second check.