The Restatement Third of Trusts provides that a transaction that is consistent with the beneficial interests of the beneficiary or beneficiaries in question, such as by making a no-or low-interest loan to a beneficiary as a discretionary benefit complies with the trustee’s fiduciary duties.[1] The Restatement Third of Trusts provides that reliance on the advice of legal counsel on various aspects of administration evidences prudence on the part of the trustee.[1]

It  is well-established that a court will not interfere with a trustee’s exercise of a discretionary power when that conduct is reasonable…judicial intervention is not warranted merely because the court would have differently exercised the discretion.[1]

Thus, for example, after having determined and instructed that the purposes of a charitable trust include certain purposes about which reasonable doubt had existed, and the trustee’s discretion includes the making of distributions for those purposes, it would not be proper for the court, either upon its own motion or at the request of the trustee or beneficiary, to go further and instruct the trustee in advance on matters of judgment concerning the amounts of income or the portions of the trust estate the trustee should expend for the particular purposes in question.[1]

A court will generally not interfere with a trustee’ exercise of discretion as long as the trustee acts in good faith and within the limits of sound discretion.[1]

The trustee is under a duty to the remainder beneficiaries to exercise reasonable care in an effort to preserve the trust property, a duty that ordinarily includes a goal of protecting the property’s purchasing power.[1]  A balance is to be achieved in a manner that is fair to all beneficiaries as a reflection of their particular beneficial interests – that is, reflecting the trust’s purposes, terms, and obligations, in light of the circumstances of the trust and usually the circumstances of the beneficiaries, including the needs of an income beneficiary so far as these needs are relevant to the purposes of the trust.[2]