(a) The court may intervene in the administration of a trust to the extent its jurisdiction is invoked by an interested person or as provided by law.

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Terms Used In Alabama Code 19-3B-201

  • Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. Source: OCC
  • Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
  • person: includes a corporation as well as a natural person. See Alabama Code 1-1-1
  • property: includes both real and personal property. See Alabama Code 1-1-1
  • Settlement: Parties to a lawsuit resolve their difference without having a trial. Settlements often involve the payment of compensation by one party in satisfaction of the other party's claims.
  • Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
(b) A trust is not subject to continuing judicial supervision unless ordered by the court.
(c) A judicial proceeding involving a trust may relate to any matter involving the trust’s administration, including a request for instructions and an action to declare rights.
(d) A judicial proceeding involving a trust may relate to any matter involving the trust’s administration, including, but not being limited to a proceeding to:

(1) request instructions;
(2) determine the existence or nonexistence of any immunity, power, privilege, duty or right;
(3) approve a nonjudicial settlement;
(4) interpret or construe the terms of the trust;
(5) determine the validity of a trust or of any of its terms;
(6) approve a trustee‘s report or accounting or compel a trustee to report or account;
(7) direct a trustee to refrain from performing a particular act or grant to a trustee any necessary or desirable power;
(8) review the actions or approve the proposed actions of a trustee, including the exercise of a discretionary power;
(9) accept the resignation of a trustee;
(10) appoint or remove a trustee;
(11) determine a trustee’s compensation;
(12) transfer a trust’s principal place of administration or a trust’s property to another jurisdiction;
(13) determine the liability of a trustee for an action relating to the trust and compel redress of a breach of trust by any available remedy;
(14) modify or terminate a trust;
(15) combine trusts or divide a trust;
(16) determine liability of a trust for debts of a beneficiary and living settlor;
(17) determine liability of a trust for debts, expenses of administration, and statutory allowances chargeable against the estate of a deceased settlor;
(18) determine the liability of a trust for claims, expenses and taxes in connection with the settlement of a trust that was revocable at the settlor’s death; and
(19) ascertain beneficiaries and determine to whom property will pass upon final or partial termination of a trust.