Certification of Trust Requirements in Mississippi

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Mississippi uses ten items with two conditional fields

Miss. Code Ann. § 91-8-1013(a)-(h) lets a trustee furnish a certification to any person instead of the instrument to evidence the trust's existence and validity. The certification must affirm current existence and creation date; identify the settlor and acting trustee with address; state transaction-relevant administrative or managerial powers, revocability, signer authority, title name, and a best-knowledge no-inaccuracy representation.

Two items depend on circumstances. If successor trustees are designated, the certification must detail the succession conditions or say a third party may rely on one or more successors without proof. The trust's Social Security number or EIN is required only when that identifier is essential to the transaction prompting the request.

The acting-trustee paragraph permits—but does not require—the identity and address of named successors or a statement that none is named.

The signers follow stated authority and a notary must attest

The opening sentence requires the certification to be signed by the trustee or trustees having signature authority as identified in paragraph (6), and attested by a notary public. Mississippi therefore does not use a universal any-one-trustee rule or an automatic all-current-trustees rule.

Paragraph (6) requires the certification to explain, for multiple current or successor trustees, whether all or fewer must sign to exercise different trustee powers. The execution should match that reported authority.

Powers are tied to the transaction or request

Section 91-8-1013(a)(4) requires “administrative or managerial powers of the trustee in a pending transaction or relevant to the request.” It does not require an inventory of every distribution, investment, tax, business, litigation, or real-property power the trust might grant.

Likewise, the title field asks for the name in which title may be taken. The section does not separately require a parcel number, legal description, property schedule, governing-law statement, or trust-situs address.

Providing the instrument is the trustee's choice, not the recipient's excerpt right

The certification need not contain distribution provisions. Section 91-8-1013(c) lets the offering trustee provide any part of the instrument and amendments but says nothing requires dispositive terms or the entire documents.

Unlike the standard UTC provision, Mississippi does not say the recipient may require trustee-designation or transaction-power excerpts. A different paragraph permits the recipient to demand additional information only as a precondition to a contract when needed to clarify ambiguities or inconsistencies in the certificate.

Reliance includes a beneficiary-action indemnity

Section 91-8-1013(d) protects reliance without actual knowledge that the facts are wrong and permits assumption of the facts without inquiry. Holding all or part of the instrument does not alone impute actual knowledge, and beneficiary rights against the trustee remain intact.

If beneficiaries sue the relying person over the certification transaction, the person is indemnified from trust assets to the extent of the suing beneficiaries' shares for defense costs, damage, attorney fees, and other expenses. Failure to request a certification does not remove protection or support an inference of bad faith or negligence.

The section does not force a third party to contract with the trustee and creates no damages rule for insisting on the trust instrument.

What trips people up

• The TIN is conditional. Include it only when essential to the transaction for which the trust document was requested.
• Successor information has two layers. Names and addresses are optional, but a succession-condition or reliance statement is required when successors are designated.
• Not every trustee necessarily signs. The signers are those with the authority reported under paragraph (6); notarial attestation is mandatory.
• The section states no recording effect. It names no recorder, indexing method, constructive-notice consequence, or real-property filing requirement.

Common questions

May the recipient insist that the trustee provide narrow trust excerpts?

Not under this section. The trustee may voluntarily provide any part of the instrument or amendments. The recipient may condition a contract on information needed to clarify certificate ambiguities or inconsistencies.

Does presenting a compliant certification require the recipient to transact?

No. Section 91-8-1013 expressly says a third party is not required to enter a contract with the trustee.

May the full instrument be obtained in court?

Yes. The final paragraph preserves that right in a judicial proceeding concerning the trust.

Statutes and sources

• Miss. Code Ann. § 91-8-1013(a)-(h) — availability to any person, ten content items and conditional fields, signature-authority and notary rules, privacy and voluntary disclosure, actual-knowledge reliance, beneficiary-action indemnity, failure-to-request protection, clarification and no-contract rules, and judicial access. Official Code of Mississippi public-domain transformation (accessed 2026-07-31).