Trust litigation attorney: trustee removal

When a trustee can be removed under Florida law, who can ask the court, and what a court can order instead of removal.

A trust dispute can turn on whether the trustee, the person actually running the trust, is doing the job properly, not just on whether the document itself is valid. Florida law gives a court specific tools for that question: removing the trustee, or ordering something short of removal.

The sections below set out who can ask a court to remove a trustee, the grounds a court will act on, and what it can order instead of removal.

It assumes the dispute involves a trust specifically. If you are not sure whether you are dealing with a trust matter or a challenge to a will itself, will disputes and trust disputes differ covers how to tell the two apart.

Who can ask a court to remove a trustee

Florida law names who can bring this request: the settlor who created the trust, a cotrustee, or a beneficiary can ask the court to remove a trustee. The court can also act on its own initiative, without anyone filing a request.

Source: Fla. Stat. §736.0706, Removal of trustee

The grounds a court can act on

The statute lists specific grounds, and a petition only needs to fit one. They include a serious breach of trust, and, where a trust names more than one trustee, a breakdown in cooperation between them serious enough to substantially impair administering the trust.

A further ground covers a trustee who is unfit, unwilling, or has persistently failed to administer the trust effectively, where the court determines that removing them best serves the interests of the beneficiaries. That last clause is not optional detail: unfitness by itself is not the ground. The court also has to find that removal is what actually serves the beneficiaries.

Source: Fla. Stat. §736.0706, Removal of trustee

When the dispute is between cotrustees

A trust naming more than one trustee can end up here without an accusation of wrongdoing. If the cotrustees cannot agree, and that impasse is serious enough to substantially impair running the trust, that alone supports a removal petition under the cooperation ground above, separate from a breach-of-trust claim.

A cotrustee is also one of the people the statute names as allowed to bring the petition, so this can be one trustee petitioning against another, not just a beneficiary petitioning against the trustees jointly.

Source: Fla. Stat. §736.0706, Removal of trustee

What a court can order short of removing the trustee

A trustee's violation of a duty owed to a beneficiary is what Florida law calls a breach of trust.

Short of removal, a court's remedies include ordering the trustee to redress the breach by paying money or restoring property, ordering the trustee to account, appointing a special fiduciary, or suspending the trustee. Removal under the grounds above sits alongside these as a further, separate remedy the same statute lists.

Source: Fla. Stat. §736.1001, Remedies for breach of trust

Bringing or defending one of these petitions still means finding the right lawyer for it. How to choose a probate litigator covers what to ask them at the first meeting.

Court action isn't the only route for a trust dispute. Probate vs. trust settlement agreements in Florida covers §736.0111, the trust code's separate mechanism for resolving a matter by agreement instead.

For a broader look at what a trust dispute involves before it reaches a removal petition, from standing to sue through a trustee's day-to-day distribution duties, see trust litigation FAQ.

None of this is legal advice about a specific trust. Whether a particular trustee's conduct actually meets one of these grounds, and what a court would decide on a given set of facts, is a question a lawyer needs to look at directly. The grounds and procedure above are Florida's; other states set their own rules, so confirm the position with a lawyer admitted where the trust is administered.