Herbig v. Welch, No. 01-22-00080-CV, 2023 WL 4188074 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] June 27, 2023, no pet. h.).
Property Code § 115.001 authorizes the court to intervene in the administration of a trust if the court’s jurisdiction in invoked by an interested person. On appeal, the trustee asserted that the plaintiff is not an interested person. The court held that because the trustee did not raise this issue of statutory interpretation at the trial level, the issue is waived on appeal. The determination of whether the plaintiff is an interested person is not “a jurisdictional question of constitutional standing that can be raised at any time, including for the first time on appeal.” Id. at *13.
Moral: A trustee who claims the plaintiff is not an interested person statutorily authorized to enforce a trust should raise the issue at the trial level.
After a trust terminated by its express terms, the trustee accepted additional property into the trust. The appellate court held that the trustee lacked authority to do so. Once a trust terminates, the trustee’s powers are restricted to those necessary to wind up the trust and distribute property to the remainder beneficiaries under Property Code § 112.052. Accordingly, the conveyances of property to the trust which the trustee accepted are void because the trust did not exist when the conveyances were made.
Moral: Once a trust terminates, the trustee may no longer accept new property into the trust.