Utilizing a Letter of Wishes in Trust Creation

Alexander A. Bove, Jr.

, (attorney, Boston) has published his article entitled The Letter of Wishes: Can We Influence Discretion in Discretionary Trusts?, 35 Am. C. of Trust & Estate Counsel 38 (Summer 2009).  The editor’s synopsis of the article is below:

This article discusses the benefits of letters of wishes, the limited circumstances in which they are binding upon trustees and the issues of when they can be discovered by the beneficiaries.  The author urges practitioners more frequently to suggest that clients implement letters of wishes and advises that they be designed expressly not to be binding upon the trustees, and therefore, not to be discovered by the beneficiaries.