Following recent posts about attorney appointment, it is important to remember that a sole individual trustee of a trust can appoint their attorney/s under an enduring power of attorney to act on their behalf if they are unable to carry out their duties as trustee of the trust.
This approach is subject to the trust deed for the trust allowing this outcome.
An example of the relevant clause a trust deed should contain is as follows:
“The Trustee may authorise any person to act as its attorney to perform any act or exercise any discretion within the Trustee’s power including the power to appoint in turn its own agent, attorney or delegate.The appointment may be in respect of more than one delegate or severally and may include provisions to protect those dealing with the agent, attorney or delegate.”
An example provision that should be added to the enduring power of attorney is as follows:
“Whereas I am currently the sole trustee of ‘[#insert] Trust’ a trust established pursuant to the Deed dated [#insert], pursuant to the Trusts Act [#insert details of the relevant stat based Act] and of every other power and law thereunto enabling in the event of my inability for any reason either temporarily or permanently to carry out my duties as sole trustee, or as one of a number of trustees of the [#insert], then this enduring power of attorney operates and allows the attorneys named in this document to act as my attorneys in respect of my trusteeship of the [#insert].”
** for the trainspotters, the title here is riffed (read carefully) from the Beatles Album ‘Rubber Soul’ (Sole) and the song, ‘I’m looking through you’.