Often, trusts have more than one trustee. This way different trustees can bring different skills and knowledge to their roles. For instance, a bank and a family member may share the responsibility so that the bank can take care of investments and accounting and the family member can use their knowledge of the beneficiary’s situation and needs to make distribution decisions.
We are often asked, however, whether every trustee has to sign every check issued by the trust. The answer is no. Virtually every trust provides that any trustee may act on behalf of the trust and that third parties should be able to rely on what any trustee tells them.
That said, most trusts specify that all decisions must be made by either a consensus of all of the trustees or by a majority. But we are looking at two different issues here: decision-making and representing the trust. Writing a check is acting for the trust, and any trustee should be able to do that.
Of course, the person creating a trust could change this standard and require that all trustees always act together. The problem with doing this is that it could be quite cumbersome and foul up the operation of the trust.