Republished with permission, originally appeared in the Colorado Lawyer, Vol. 49, No. 5, May 2020.
In 2018, the Colorado Legislature passed Colorado’s version of the Uniform Trust Code (UTC), the Colorado Uniform Trust Code (CUTC), with an effective date of January 2, 2019. A previous Colorado Lawyer article covered a range of ways to modify irrevocable trusts, including the use of methods set forth in the CUTC. This article digs deeper into one of the more exciting areas of the CUTC, the CRS §15-5-111 provision for a nonjudicial settlement agreement (NJSA), which states that “any person may enter into a binding nonjudicial settlement agreement with respect to any matter involving a trust, regardless of whether the settlement agreement is supported by consideration” unless an NJSA violates a material purpose of the trust or includes terms that could not be properly approved by a court.
This article considers how to use nonjudicial settlement agreements in connection with trust administration, estate planning, and related disputes.
Carol Warnick is a partner with Holland & Hart in Denver. She focuses her practice on estate and wealth transfer planning and administration, and probate and trust litigation. Warnick also mediates trust and estate related disputes. She practices in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming.
Please click here to read the full article: Nonjudicial Settlement Agreements under the CUTC: What Are the Limits?
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