Arizona Laws 14-10111. Nonjudicial settlement agreements; definition
A. Except as otherwise provided in subsection B of this section, and except for modification or termination of a trust as otherwise permitted pursuant to the trust instrument, interested persons may enter into a binding nonjudicial settlement agreement with respect to any matter involving a trust.
Terms Used In Arizona Laws 14-10111
- Action: includes any matter or proceeding in a court, civil or criminal. See Arizona Laws 1-215
- Court: means the superior court. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Interested person: includes any trustee, heir, devisee, child, spouse, creditor, beneficiary, person holding a power of appointment and other person who has a property right in or claim against a trust estate or the estate of a decedent, ward or protected person. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Person: means an individual, corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, limited liability company, association, joint venture, government, governmental subdivision, agency or instrumentality, public corporation or any other legal or commercial entity. See Arizona Laws 14-10103
- Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
- 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.
- Trust: includes an express trust, private or charitable, with any additions, wherever and however created. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
- Trust instrument: means an instrument executed by the settlor that contains terms of the trust, including any amendments to that trust. See Arizona Laws 14-10103
- Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
- Trustee: includes an original, additional and successor trustee and a cotrustee. See Arizona Laws 14-10103
B. A nonjudicial settlement agreement is valid only to the extent it does not violate a material purpose of the trust and includes terms and conditions that could be properly approved by the court under this chapter or other applicable law.
C. Matters that may be resolved by a nonjudicial settlement agreement include:
1. The interpretation or construction of the terms of the trust.
2. The approval of a trustee‘s report or accounting.
3. Direction to a trustee to refrain from performing a particular act or the grant to a trustee of any necessary or desirable power.
4. The resignation or appointment of a trustee and the determination of a trustee’s compensation.
5. The transfer of a trust’s principal place of administration.
6. The liability of a trustee for an action relating to the trust.
D. Before or after the parties enter into a nonjudicial settlement agreement, any interested person may request the court to approve a nonjudicial settlement agreement to determine whether the representation as provided in article 3 of this chapter was adequate and to determine whether the agreement contains terms and conditions the court could have properly approved.
E. Unless the interested person, pursuant to subsection D of this section, asks the court to rule without regard to this subsection, the court may either approve the agreement or decline to approve the agreement, but may not disapprove or deny the effectiveness of the agreement. If the court does not approve the agreement pursuant to this subsection, the failure to approve is not any prejudice against the effectiveness of the agreement and is not a final judgment or judicial precedent with respect to the agreement or subsequent agreements pursuant to the section.
F. For the purposes of this section, "interested person" has the same meaning prescribed in section 14-1201.