The trigger is a decision, not a document
Most application provisions in the Trust Code work on trusts or instruments. This one works on conduct.
This part applies to a trust subject to this chapter, whenever created, that has its principal place of administration in the state, subject to the following rules:
(a) If the trust was created before July 1, 2021, this part applies only to a decision or action occurring on or after July 1, 2021.
(b) If the principal place of administration of the trust is changed to the state on or after July 1, 2021, this part applies only to a decision or action occurring on or after the date of the change.
Section 736.1403(1), Florida Statutes.
Whenever created is as wide as it sounds. A trust from 1975 with a protector clause is within the Act. But only for what happens now.
That produces a split that matters in litigation. A directed trustee sued over something done in 2019 is judged under former section 736.0808, which allowed it to refuse a direction that was manifestly contrary to the terms of the trust or known to be a serious breach of the director’s fiduciary duty. The same trustee sued over something done in 2024 is judged under section 736.1409, where the only floor is the trustee’s own willful misconduct.
The article written by the Act’s drafting chair describes the new standard as a departure from the old one. So the date of the decision does not just choose a statute. It changes the test.
The jurisdictional hook, which is easy to miss
In addition to s. 736.0108, relating to a trust’s principal place of administration, in a directed trust, terms of the trust that designate the principal place of administration of the trust in the state are valid and controlling if a trust director’s principal place of business is located in or a trust director is a resident of the state.
Section 736.1403(2), Florida Statutes.
Set that against the ordinary rule. Section 736.0108 governs principal place of administration, and the Fourth District has twice held that a clause choosing another state’s law does not set the place of administration. A designation, on its own, does not control.
For directed trusts this subsection reverses that, on one condition. There must be a trust director whose principal place of business is in Florida, or who is a Florida resident. The article puts the practical point more bluntly than the statute does.
Thus, the location of a trust director in Florida is sufficient in and of itself to allow Florida to be the principal place of administration.
Rubin and Rubin, The Florida Bar Journal, March/April 2022.
One director. Not the trustee, not the assets, not the beneficiaries. Appoint a Florida resident as a trust director and designate Florida in the terms, and the designation controls.
Principal place of administration is not a technicality. It drives venue and jurisdiction, and under section 736.1415 a trust director submits to the personal jurisdiction of Florida courts by accepting appointment. The three fit together deliberately.
Why the Act was passed at all
Directed trusts were being used long before Florida had a statute for them. The article describes the gap.
With the increasing number of directed trusts came numerous legal questions which were not fully answered by existing Florida law. How is fiduciary responsibility allocated between the trust director and the trustee? How much information do the trust director and the trustee need to share with each other? Can a trust director receive compensation for its work?
Rubin and Rubin, The Florida Bar Journal, March/April 2022.
The prior provision, former section 736.0808, was thin, and the article records that there was little by way of caselaw interpreting these provisions. The Real Property, Probate and Trust Law Section of The Florida Bar sought a Florida version of the uniform act, and the result is Part XIV.
One structural note for anyone reading the Part. The article records that the last two digits of each section number correspond to the source section of the uniform act, which is why the numbering runs 1401, 1403, 1405 and so on with gaps. Material from the uniform act that Florida chose to place elsewhere went into existing sections instead, including the directed trust definitions in section 736.0103 and the certification changes in section 736.1017.
No court has construed this section
Our review found no citing decision, on a Florida court filter and nationwide, at every precedential status.
What is untested is the interaction between subsection (2) and the ordinary rules. If a trust designates Florida and a director is here, but the trustee, the assets and every beneficiary are elsewhere, the subsection says the designation controls. Whether that survives a challenge grounded in due process rather than in chapter 736 is not something any Florida decision has addressed.