What Can a Trustee Not Do in Florida?

1. What Can a Trustee Not Do?

A Florida trustee cannot administer the trust for anyone other than the beneficiaries. Every specific prohibition in the duty of loyalty and the duties around it follows from that one rule, and the trust itself cannot waive the core of it, the duty to act in good faith, according to the trust’s terms and purposes and the interests of the beneficiaries.

In practice, seven rules cover almost every dispute.

1. No self-dealing. A trustee cannot buy, sell, borrow or lend trust property for the trustee’s own account.
2. No deals with family without protection. A transaction with the trustee’s spouse, children, siblings, parents or their spouses, or with a company the trustee has an interest in, is presumed to be conflicted.
3. No taking the trust’s opportunities. A trustee who learns of a deal that properly belongs to the trust, such as the neighbor’s lot next to the trust’s property, cannot take it personally.
4. No commingling. The trustee must keep trust property separate from the trustee’s own and keep clear, distinct and accurate records. Our page on commingling trust property covers the rule.
5. No favoritism. Where there are two or more beneficiaries, the trustee must act impartially, giving due regard to each one’s interests.
6. No careless management. The trustee must act as a prudent person would, with reasonable care, skill and caution, and must take control of and protect the property.
7. No secrecy. Once the trust is irrevocable, the trustee must send the qualified beneficiaries notices within 60 days, a copy of the trust on request, and a trust accounting every year. A beneficiary who has never seen the document should start by getting a copy of the trust.

A trustee can do plenty that looks suspicious at first glance and is allowed. A trustee may be paid a reasonable fee, hire lawyers and accountants, including the trustee’s own firm at reasonable cost, deposit trust money in a bank the trustee operates, and advance money to protect the trust. The guide to what a trustee is covers the job in full.

2. Can a Trustee Sell Trust Property to Himself?

A trustee who sells trust property to himself makes a transaction that any affected beneficiary can undo. Florida lets the sale stand only in listed situations, the main ones being that the trust authorized it, a court approved it, the beneficiary consented or ratified it, the beneficiary let the deadline to challenge it pass, or the grantor consented in writing while the trust was revocable.

A beneficiary’s consent protects the trustee only when it was given knowingly. Florida does not hold the beneficiary to a consent the trustee obtained through improper conduct, or one given when the beneficiary did not know their rights or the material facts. A brother who signs a one-page approval of his sister buying the trust’s house, without an appraisal, has given less protection than she thinks.

The same rules reach a house sold to the trustee’s husband or a loan to the trustee’s business, because Florida presumes those deals are affected by a conflict. A trustee who wants to buy a family asset should get an independent appraisal and either written consent from every affected beneficiary or a court order. The questions about a beneficiary living in trust property raise the same conflict when the beneficiary is also the trustee.

3. Can a Trustee Take Money Out of the Trust?

A trustee can take three kinds of money out of a trust and no others.

1. Compensation. The fee the trust sets, or a reasonable fee when the trust is silent. A court can adjust a fee that is unreasonably low or high. Our page on Florida trustee fees covers what reasonable tends to mean.
2. Reimbursement. Reasonable expenses properly incurred in administering the trust, with interest where appropriate.
3. Distributions the trust allows. A trustee who is also a beneficiary may receive what the trust gives every beneficiary. Florida adds a limit on discretion. Unless the trust expressly says otherwise, a trustee who is also a beneficiary cannot make discretionary distributions to themselves beyond what is needed for health, education, maintenance or support.

Anything else, including a loan to the trustee, rent-free use of trust property by the trustee, or paying the trustee’s personal bills, needs authority in the trust, a court order or informed consent. The page on whether a trustee can be a beneficiary covers the conflict in more depth.

4. What to Do If a Trustee Is Stealing

When a beneficiary suspects the trustee is taking money, speed matters more than certainty. Five steps protect the most.

1. Get the documents. Request a complete copy of the trust and every accounting in writing. A trustee who refuses has breached a duty the trust cannot waive.
2. Preserve what you have. Keep bank statements, emails, texts and closing documents, and write down dates while they are fresh.
3. Ask the court for protection early. A court can suspend the trustee, appoint a special fiduciary to take possession of the trust property, and bar a pending sale while the case is decided.
4. Claim the property, not only money. Where trust money bought a house or a car, the court can impose a constructive trust or a lien on it and trace the money into whatever it bought. That claim reaches the property itself.
5. Consider law enforcement. Taking trust property can be a crime as well as a breach of trust, and a report does not replace the civil case that gets the money back.

One limit shapes the strategy. A Florida court generally will not freeze a trustee’s own unrelated assets before judgment merely to make sure a money judgment can be collected. The case retold at the end of this page turned on that rule, which is why step four matters.

5. Can a Beneficiary Sue a Trustee?

Yes. A violation of any duty a trustee owes a beneficiary is a breach of trust, and a beneficiary can sue for it once the trust is irrevocable. The case begins with a complaint under the Florida Rules of Civil Procedure, and the trustee is sued in the trustee’s capacity as trustee and, where money is sought from the trustee personally, individually too. Our trust litigation page covers the wider range of claims.

Two fee rules matter from the start. A trustee sued for breach can pay defense lawyers from the trust after serving a notice of intent on the affected qualified beneficiaries, and a beneficiary can ask the court to stop those payments where there is a reasonable basis to conclude a breach occurred. At the end, the court awards costs and attorney’s fees as in chancery actions and can charge them against a party’s share of the trust or against the party personally.

Where the breach is serious, the same lawsuit can ask the court to remove the trustee.

6. How Long Do You Have to Sue a Trustee?

The deadline depends on what the trustee disclosed. Florida’s rules, from the limitations statute, work in three layers.

• 6 months. A claim based on a matter adequately disclosed in a trust accounting or other written report is barred 6 months after the beneficiary receives the report together with a limitation notice warning of the 6-month period.
• Florida’s general limitation periods. Where the trustee issued no report with that notice, the claim follows the general periods in chapter 95, running from when the beneficiary actually knew the facts or the trustee repudiated the trust.
• The outer limits. Every claim is barred 10 years after the trust ends or the trustee leaves, or 20 years after the act, where the beneficiary knew of the trust throughout, and in all events 40 years after the relationship ends. Active concealment extends those limits by 30 years.

Silence works in the beneficiary’s favor on one point. Knowing that you have not received an accounting does not start any clock on a claim for the missing accounting.

7. What Can a Court Do to a Trustee?

A trustee who commits a breach of trust is liable for the greater of two numbers. The first is the amount needed to restore the trust and its distributions to where they would have been, including lost income, capital gains and appreciation. The second is the profit the trustee made from the breach. A trustee who buys a trust lot for himself at $200,000 and resells it for $350,000 can owe the $150,000 profit even if $200,000 was a fair price on the day of the sale.

The court’s list of remedies for breach of trust also lets it compel performance, enjoin a breach, order an accounting, appoint a special fiduciary, suspend or remove the trustee, reduce or deny the trustee’s compensation, void the trustee’s acts, impose a lien or a constructive trust, and trace property wrongfully disposed of. Where the breach favored one beneficiary, the court can take the excess back out of that beneficiary’s future distributions.

What Does It Cost to Bring a Claim Against a Trustee?

Suing a trustee is litigation, which we quote per matter after reading the trust and the records, because the cost moves with how hard the trustee fights. We do not quote litigation as a flat fee. Where a trustee needs help getting back on track, trust administration is a flat fee quoted at consult. Court filing fees and other government costs are additional and passed through at cost. Advertised fees are honored for 90 days from the posted date.

Frequently Asked Questions

Common Situations

The brokerage account in the trustee’s own name. A son serving as trustee moves $180,000 of trust money into a brokerage account titled to himself, meaning to keep it separate in his head. The account statements now show his money and the trust’s together. The fix is to retitle the account to the trust at once and document every dollar, before a sibling asks for the accounting.

The sister who bought the condo. A trustee buys the trust’s condo at the county’s assessed value, which is below market, and her brother learns of it a year later. He can ask the court to void the sale or to make her pay the difference, because she dealt with trust property for her own account without the trust’s authority, a court order or his informed consent.

Sources of Law

• Fla. Stat. §736.0801 (annotated) (duty to administer in good faith); §736.0105 (annotated)(2)(b),(s) (good faith and information duties prevail over the trust’s terms); §736.0802(1)-(4) (loyalty; voidable transactions and exceptions; presumed conflict with family and affiliated entities; trust opportunities); §736.0802(7)-(8) (permitted transactions and employment of agents); §736.0802(10)(b),(e) (defense fees from trust assets after notice of intent; motion to prohibit).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0803 (impartiality); §736.0804 (annotated) (prudent administration); §736.0810(1)-(2) (records; property kept separate); §736.0813 (annotated)(1) (duty to inform and account); §736.0814 (annotated)(1),(2)(a) (discretion in good faith; limits on distributions by a beneficiary-trustee).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0708 (annotated)(1)-(2) (compensation); §736.0709 (annotated)(1) (reimbursement); §736.0816 (annotated)(23) (power to prosecute actions); §736.0505 (annotated)(1)(a) (revocable trust property subject to settlor’s creditors); §736.1012 (annotated) (consent, release or ratification, and its limits).
• Fla. Stat. §736.0201 (annotated)(1) (trust proceedings by complaint); §736.1001(1)-(3) (breach defined; remedies); §736.1002 (annotated)(1) (damages, greater of restoration or trustee’s profit); §736.1004 (annotated)(1)-(2) (fees and costs); §736.1008(2),(3),(6)(a)-(b) (6-month bar after disclosure with limitation notice; accrual; repose of 10, 20 and 40 years; 30-year extension for concealment).
• Case retold below: Trombino v. Echeverria, No. 4D21-3525 (Fla. 4th DCA Sept. 21, 2022). Opinion read in full; retrieved September 30, 2026.

Why a Suspicion Needs the Right Claim From Day One

Most people who call about a trustee they believe is taking money want the same thing first, which is to stop the money from leaving before anyone can get it back. Florida gives a beneficiary real tools for that, and a beneficiary who reaches for the wrong one can watch the money go.

I have come across a case where exactly that happened. A Florida couple set up two revocable trusts and a family trust in 2006, planning for everything to pass to their son and daughter in the end. The father died in 2009 and the mother became trustee. One of her assets was a house in Highland Beach. In 2016 she deeded herself a life estate in the house with the remainder to her daughter, and a few weeks later resigned as trustee and named the daughter as successor. The mother died in 2021, and the daughter listed the house for sale. The son sued her for breach of fiduciary duty and an accounting, claiming she had mismanaged their mother’s trust in the years before the death. His claims did not challenge the house. Because his sister had no other property in Florida and planned to move to North Carolina, he asked the court to hold the sale proceeds in a restricted account until his case was decided, and the trial court did. The Fourth District reversed in 2022. A money claim against a trustee does not let a court tie up the trustee’s own assets before judgment, and the house had passed to her outright rather than through the trust.

Having read the Florida cases on protecting trust money while a claim is pending, I have a few take-home points.

The first is the kind of claim. The son sued for money, which left the house proceeds as his sister’s personal property. A beneficiary who believes trust money bought something should claim the thing itself, through a constructive trust or tracing, from the first pleading. The appeals court noted that the son raised that theory too late.

The second is timing. The request to hold the money came after the house was listed. Avoid waiting for the asset to be on the market before asking the court to suspend the trustee or appoint a special fiduciary over what is still in the trust.

The third is the deed. The mother’s 2016 deed moved the house out of her trust and into a life estate with a remainder to one child, which is lawful and is also the transfer that made the sale proceeds the daughter’s own money rather than the trust’s. An owner who wants a house to pass equally should leave it in the trust or deed it to every child, and an owner who wants one child to have it should say so in writing where the other children can read it.

One limit is worth stating plainly. The appeals court decided only whether the proceeds could be frozen, so the opinion makes no finding that the daughter did anything wrong as trustee.

Kevin D. Klagge, Esq., admitted in Florida since 2012. Each case described above is a decision of a Florida court rather than a matter handled by this firm. Past results do not guarantee a similar outcome.

Updated on September 30, 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, not legal advice, and no attorney-client relationship is created. Do not send confidential information until we have agreed to represent you.