Washington Code 11.100.020 – Management of trust assets by fiduciary

(1) A trustee shall invest and manage trust assets as a prudent investor would, by considering the purposes, terms, distribution requirements, and other circumstances of the trust. In satisfying this standard, the trustee shall exercise reasonable care, skill, and caution.

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Terms Used In Washington Code 11.100.020

Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
Personal property: All property that is not real property.
Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
Representation: refers to a method of determining distribution in which the takers are in unequal degrees of kinship with respect to a decedent, and is accomplished as follows: After first determining who, of those entitled to share in the estate, are in the nearest degree of kinship, the estate is divided into equal shares, the number of shares being the sum of the number of persons who survive the decedent who are in the nearest degree of kinship and the number of persons in the same degree of kinship who died before the decedent but who left issue surviving the decedent; each share of a deceased person in the nearest degree must be divided among those of the deceased person's issue who survive the decedent and have no ancestor then living who is in the line of relationship between them and the decedent, those more remote in degree taking together the share which their ancestor would have taken had he or she survived the decedent. See Washington Code 11.02.005
Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
Trustee: means an original, added, or successor trustee and includes the state, or any agency thereof, when it is acting as the trustee of a trust to which chapter 11. See Washington Code 11.02.005

(2) A trustee’s investment and management decisions respecting individual assets must be evaluated not in isolation but in the context of the trust portfolio as a whole and as a part of an overall investment strategy having risk and return objectives reasonably suited to the trust.

(3) Among the circumstances that a trustee shall consider in investing and managing trust assets are such of the following as are relevant to the trust or its beneficiaries:

(a) General economic conditions;

(b) The possible effect of inflation or deflation;

(d) The role that each investment or course of action plays within the overall portfolio, which may include financial assets, interests in closely held enterprises, tangible and intangible personal property, and real property;

(e) The expected total return from income and the appreciation of capital;

(f) Other resources of the beneficiaries;

(g) Needs for liquidity, regularity of income, and preservation or appreciation of capital; and

(h) An asset’s special relationship or special value, if any, to the purposes of the trust or to one or more of the beneficiaries.

(4) A trustee shall make a reasonable effort to verify facts relevant to the investment and management of trust assets.

(5) A trustee may invest in any kind of property or type of investment consistent with the standards of this section.

(6) A trustee who has special skills or expertise, or is named trustee in reliance upon the trustee’s representation that the trustee has special skills or expertise, has a duty to use those special skills or expertise.

[ 2015 c 115 § 18; 1995 c 307 § 2; 1985 c 30 § 65. Prior: 1984 c 149 § 97; 1955 c 33 § 30.24.020; prior: 1947 c 100 § 2; Rem. Supp. 1947 § 3255-10b. Formerly RCW 30.24.020.]