Who Are My Qualified Beneficiaries?

As Susan Bart demonstrates in her May 2021 Illinois Bar Journal article, “Who Are My Qualified Beneficiaries?,” it is essential to determine the qualified beneficiaries of an irrevocable trust under the Illinois Trust Code (ITC). Qualified beneficiaries have rights to receive notices of the existence of the trust and certain events, information about the trust, and accounts. But qualified beneficiaries may also be necessary parties to certain actions, such as a nonjudicial settlement agreement. A trustee who fails to correctly identify qualified beneficiaries, Bart notes, may breach her or his duties to provide information to qualified beneficiaries, or may provide information to beneficiaries who are not required to receive it. The Uniform Trust Code (UTC), upon which the ITC was based, uses the concept of “qualified beneficiary” to limit the class of beneficiaries to whom certain notices must be given or consents received. Bart introduces several kinds of scenarios that unpack the differences between qualified beneficiaries and remote and contingent beneficiaries under the new ITC.

Read more in the May issue of the Illinois Bar Journal.