## Facts

- In 1989, Aurele Provost and Geraldine Provost executed a joint revocable inter vivos trust naming Aurele’s three children (Levis Provost, Marquis Provost, and Constance Monty) as beneficiaries.
- The trust’s amendment provisions limited amendment authority to the grantors “during their lives.”
- Aurele died in 1994.
- In 2001, Geraldine alone executed an instrument purporting to amend the trust to give the first $10,000 to her former foster child, Sharon Metz (Sharon Harsch), and the remaining assets to her caregiver, Elizabeth Justin.
- After Geraldine died in 2005, Aurele’s children sued to invalidate the 2001 amendment, asserting the trust required both grantors to join in any amendment.

## Issues

1. Whether a joint revocable trust that limits amendment to the grantors “during their lives” requires both settlors to execute amendments, rendering a post-death amendment signed only by the survivor ineffective.

## Decision

- The appellate court reversed the trial court’s summary judgment for Justin and Harsch.
- The court held that, under the trust as a whole, both grantors were required to execute any amendment.
- Because Aurele did not execute the 2001 amendment and had died years earlier, the amendment was ineffective.
- The case was remanded with directions to enter summary judgment for Aurele’s children.

## Legal Principles

- The controlling objective in trust interpretation is the settlors’ intent.
- S settlor intent is determined by construing the trust instrument as a whole and considering its overall dispositional scheme, rather than relying on isolated words or phrases.
- In a joint trust, language limiting amendment authority to the grantors “during their lives” may be construed to require joint action by both settlors; absent contrary language, the power to amend does not continue unilaterally in the surviving settlor after the other settlor’s death.

## Conclusion

The court held that the joint trust’s amendment power was a joint power limited to both settlors’ lifetimes; therefore, the surviving settlor’s unilateral amendment after the other settlor’s death was invalid, and the original beneficiary designations controlled.


Provost v. Justin, 19 So. 3d 333 (Fla. 2d DCA 2009)