{"id":34428,"date":"2022-06-07T16:13:02","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T20:13:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cccc.org\/news_blogs\/?p=34428"},"modified":"2022-06-07T16:13:04","modified_gmt":"2022-06-07T20:13:04","slug":"bill-12-revamps-albertas-trustee-act","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cccc.org\/news_blogs\/legal\/2022\/06\/bill-12-revamps-albertas-trustee-act\/","title":{"rendered":"Bill 12 Revamps Alberta\u2019s Trustee Act"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Alberta\u2019s recent Bill 12<\/a> revamped the Trustee Act<\/em>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why a new act?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One of the key reasons for a new act was to reduce costs and increase clarity.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The old act was mostly concerned with trusts from wills, but trusts are used more broadly. The new act fills gaps by including those broader uses. It also creates default rules so that people setting up trusts don\u2019t have to include every single term; instead, they can rely on the legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The new act implemented recommendations<\/a> from the Alberta Law Reform Institute<\/a>. It generally follows a uniform trustee act proposed by the Uniform Law Conference of Canada<\/a>. This group aims to harmonize laws across Canada.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What about charities?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

For charities, the new act makes it easier to vary charitable trusts. It saves them from failing when the original purpose of the trust cannot be met and needs to be applied to a similar purpose. The court can also modify the purpose even where the original purpose hasn\u2019t yet failed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What\u2019s new?<\/h3>\n\n\n\n

One quick look at the new Trustee Act<\/em> and you\u2019ll see it is much more comprehensive. It applies to trusts regardless of their creation date, except where the Act provides otherwise. So what\u2019s new? The Government of Alberta provides a helpful summary of the key changes<\/a>:<\/p>\n\n\n\n