Surrogate Voids Exoneration Clause in Lifetime Trust

In Matter of Shore, (2008 NY Slip Op 28102) (Dec. March 19, 2008) New York County Surrogate, Renee R. Roth, voided a provision in a lifetime trust, which purported to relieve the trustee (the lawyer who drafted the trust) from the obligation to account, prior to the termination of the trust. The Surrogate held that New York's public policy, expressed in EPTL §11-1.7 (1)(1) which voids similar provisions in testamentary trusts, is equally applicable to inter vivos trusts, rejecting the few decisions that appear to hold that such clauses are not similarly forbidden. The Court noted that there is a strong suggestion of violation of an attorney's ethical obligations in drafting a trust instrument that would render the attorney/trustee unaccountable