Surrogate Edward McCarty III
Petitioner, Silverman’s guardian, sought permission to establish a supplemental needs trust (SNT) to be funded with monies received from Silverman’s father’s estate. The Attorney General objected to the proposed SNT as the petition sought waiver of a trustee’s bond, noting petitioner presumed the Surrogate’s Court would waive a bond until the time a trust corpus exceeded $30,000. The AG argued the automatic presumption was unwarranted, seeking to have the court impose the bond, and change the language in the SNT accordingly. The Surrogate’s Court generally only required a bond where the corpus of the guardianship estate exceed $30,000. The court noted, contrary to the A.G.’s contention, that petitioner’s counsel was merely aware of the court’s practice, and not making a presumption. It found the A.G. made no legal argument or presented facts as to why the court’s general practice should not be applied here, thus, the objection was overruled, and the SNT approved. The petition also sought legal fees. The court noted, after a review of the various criteria for approving legal fees, and being mindful of the limited corpus of the estate, the attorney fee was set at $2,000, plus reimbursements of $293.32.
