Certification of Trust Requirements in District of Columbia
At a glance
| Governing law and availability | D.C. Code § 19-1310.13; general certification of trust authorized |
|---|---|
| Permitted use and recipient | Trustee may furnish person other than beneficiary a certification instead of trust instrument (§ 19-1310.13(a)) |
| Trust identity and party contents | Must state trust existence/execution date, settlor identity, and current trustee identity + address (§ 19-1310.13(a)(1)-(3)) |
| Authority, status, and title contents | Must state powers, revocability/revoker, cotrustee authentication/exercise authority, title manner, and no change making representations incorrect (§ 19-1310.13(a)(4)-(6), (8), (c)) |
| State-specific required contents | Must state trust TIN; no name, governing-law, situs, successor, director, transaction-description, or legal-description field (§ 19-1310.13(a)(7)) |
| Signer, authentication, and acknowledgment | Any trustee may sign or otherwise authenticate; no oath, perjury declaration, acknowledgment, witness, notary, or all-trustee rule in § 19-1310.13(b) |
| Dispositive terms and permitted excerpts | Dispositive terms need not appear; recipient may require original-instrument/later-amendment excerpts designating trustee and conferring pending-transaction power (§ 19-1310.13(d)-(e)) |
| Reliance, enforcement, and improper demands | No-knowledge reliance + fact assumption; good-faith transaction enforceable; bad-faith full-instrument demand yields damages; judicial access preserved (§ 19-1310.13(f)-(i)) |
| Recording and real-property effect | No certification-specific recording rule or stated notice, priority, conveyance, or other real-property effect in § 19-1310.13 |
Requirements one by one
The District requires eight information groups
D.C. Code § 19-1310.13(a) lets a trustee furnish a certification instead of the trust instrument to a person other than a beneficiary. The certification must state the trust's existence and execution date, settlor identity, the current trustee's identity and address, trustee powers, revocability and any revocation-power holder, cotrustee authentication and exercise authority, the trust's taxpayer identification number, and the manner of taking title to trust property.
Subsection (c) separately requires a statement that no revocation, modification, or amendment makes the certification's representations incorrect.
Any trustee may authenticate without an oath or universal notary ceremony
Section 19-1310.13(b) permits any trustee to sign or otherwise authenticate the certification. It does not require every cotrustee to execute it merely because the certification must report how many cotrustees are needed to exercise trust powers.
The certification section does not prescribe an oath, declaration under penalty of perjury, acknowledgment, witness, or notarial act. A separate transaction or recordability formality should not be presented as a universal execution condition under § 19-1310.13.
The TIN and title fields are required, but a property schedule is not
Subsection (a)(7) calls for “the trust’s taxpayer identification number.” Unlike some state variants, the District's text does not condition that item on the trust having a separately issued number and does not authorize replacing the required number with only its final four digits.
Subsection (a)(8) separately requires the manner of taking title to trust property. That is a title-format statement, not a requirement to attach a property inventory, legal description, parcel number, account list, or transaction schedule.
Dispositive terms may stay private, subject to narrow excerpts
Under § 19-1310.13(d), the certification need not contain dispositive terms. Subsection (e) permits the recipient to require excerpts from the original instrument and later amendments that designate the trustee and confer power for the pending transaction.
The recipient's express excerpt right focuses on trustee status and transaction authority. It is not automatic access to every trust provision or the complete instrument.
Reliance, enforcement, and demand remedies have separate tests
Section 19-1310.13(f) protects a person who relies without knowledge that the certification is wrong and permits assumption of the certified facts without inquiry. Holding all or part of the trust instrument does not by itself impute knowledge of its terms.
Subsection (g) requires good faith to enforce the transaction against trust property as though the certification were correct. Subsection (h) makes a person liable for damages when a court finds that a demand for the trust instrument in addition to the certification or excerpts was not made in good faith. It does not expressly add costs or attorney fees and does not cover a demand made only “in lieu of” the certification. Subsection (i) preserves access in a judicial proceeding concerning the trust.
What trips people up
- The complete TIN is a listed field. The statute does not state a last-four-digits alternative.
- Any trustee may authenticate. That rule is separate from the reported number of cotrustees needed to exercise trust powers.
- Bad-faith damages have a specific trigger. The demand must seek the instrument in addition to the certification or excerpts.
- The section states no recording consequence. It does not require recording or state a notice, priority, conveyance, or other real-property effect.
Common questions
Does the certification have to state the trust's name?
No. The complete eight-item list in § 19-1310.13(a) does not include a trust-name field, though it does require the trust's existence and instrument date.
May a beneficiary be given this statutory substitute?
Not under subsection (a)'s substitute-document route. It applies to a person other than a beneficiary.
Can a litigant still obtain the full trust instrument?
Yes. Section 19-1310.13(i) preserves the right to obtain it in a judicial proceeding concerning the trust.
Statutes and sources
- D.C. Code § 19-1310.13(a)-(i) — availability, eight required information groups, mandatory TIN, title manner, any-trustee authentication, no-inaccuracy statement, privacy and excerpts, reliance, enforcement, bad-faith-demand damages, and judicial access. D.C. Law Library (accessed 2026-07-31).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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