Wisconsin: Certification of Trust Requirements
The short answer
Wisconsin lets a trustee furnish a certification to a person other than a beneficiary instead of the trust instrument. It must contain seven core information groups and a statement that no revocation, modification, or amendment makes its representations incorrect, but any trustee may sign or otherwise authenticate it and the statute imposes no universal acknowledgment or notary requirement. Limited trustee-and-power excerpts may be demanded; protected reliance and good-faith enforcement apply, while a bad-faith excess demand can produce costs, expenses, reasonable attorney fees, and damages.
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This is the general rule in Wisconsin. Ezel applies current Wisconsin law to your specific facts and answers with citations to the statutes.
| Governing law and availability | Wis. Stat. § 701.1013; general certification of trust authorized |
|---|---|
| Permitted use and recipient | Trustee may furnish a person other than a beneficiary a certification instead of the trust instrument (§ 701.1013(1)) |
| Trust identity and party contents | Must state trust existence/execution date, settlor identity, and acting trustee's identity and address (§ 701.1013(1)(a)-(c)) |
| Authority, status, and title contents | Must state powers, revocability/revoker, cotrustee authentication authority, title manner, and no change making representations incorrect (§ 701.1013(1)(d)-(g), (3)) |
| State-specific required contents | None beyond the seven listed information groups and no-inaccuracy statement; no TIN, situs, governing-law, director, or legal-description field (§ 701.1013(1), (3)) |
| Signer, authentication, and acknowledgment | Any trustee may sign or otherwise authenticate; no oath, acknowledgment, witness, or notary requirement in § 701.1013(2) |
| Dispositive terms and permitted excerpts | Dispositive terms need not appear; recipient may require excerpts designating the trustee and conferring pending-transaction power (§ 701.1013(4)-(5)) |
| Reliance, enforcement, and improper demands | No-knowledge reliance and no-inquiry assumption; good-faith enforcement; bad-faith excess demand yields costs, expenses, reasonable attorney fees, and damages (§ 701.1013(6)-(9)) |
| Recording and real-property effect | No certification-specific recording rule or stated real-property effect in § 701.1013 |
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Requirements one by one
Wisconsin requires seven listed information groups
Wisconsin Statutes § 701.1013(1) authorizes a trustee to furnish a certification
instead of the trust instrument to a person other than a beneficiary. The document
must state the trust's existence and execution date, settlor identity, the acting
trustee's identity and address, trustee powers, revocability and the identity of any
revocation-power holder, cotrustee authentication authority, and the manner in which
title to trust property may be taken.
Subsection (3) separately requires the trustee to state that the trust has not been
revoked, modified, or amended in a way that makes the certification's representations
incorrect. The statute does not add a taxpayer identification number, situs,
governing-law statement, trust-director field, or real-property legal description to
that mandatory list.
Any trustee may authenticate the certification
Section 701.1013(2) says the document “may be signed or otherwise authenticated by any
trustee.” That is different from the content item describing whether all or fewer
cotrustees must authenticate to exercise the trustee's underlying powers.
The certification section does not require an oath, acknowledgment, witnesses, or a
notarial act. A formality attached to a separate conveyance or institutional request
should not be recast as a universal certification requirement.
Dispositive terms may stay private, with a narrow excerpt right
Under § 701.1013(4), the certification does not need to contain the trust's dispositive
terms. Subsection (5) nevertheless lets the recipient require excerpts from the
original instrument and later amendments that do two things: designate the trustee
and confer power to act in the pending transaction.
That wording does not create a general right to every provision touching trustee
powers, every fact about the transaction, or the entire trust instrument.
Reliance and enforcement use different statutory standards
Section 701.1013(6) protects a person that relies without knowledge that the
certification is wrong and permits that person to assume the certified facts without
inquiry. Possessing all or part of the trust instrument does not, by itself, impute
knowledge of its terms.
Subsection (7) separately requires good faith for transaction enforcement. A person
who enters a transaction in good-faith reliance may enforce it against the trust
property as though the certified representations were correct.
A bad-faith excess demand carries four express remedies
Section 701.1013(8) addresses a demand for trust-instrument copies or excerpts beyond
the subsection (5) excerpts in addition to the certification. If a court finds that
the demand was not made in good faith, the demanding person is liable for “costs,
expenses, reasonable attorney fees, and damages.”
The remedy is tied to the court's good-faith finding. Subsection (9) separately
preserves the right to obtain the trust instrument in a judicial proceeding concerning
the trust.
What trips people up
- The signer rule and the cotrustee-power rule answer different questions. Any
trustee may authenticate the certification, even though the certification must say
how many cotrustees are needed to exercise trust powers. - No TIN is required by this section. Wisconsin's seven-item list does not include
a taxpayer identification number or a settlor's Social Security number. - The excerpt right is transaction-specific. It reaches provisions designating
the trustee and conferring the power needed for the pending transaction, not every
trust provision a recipient would prefer to review. - No recording effect appears in § 701.1013. The certification section does not
say that recording is required, transfers title, or creates constructive notice.
Common questions
Does a certification itself create or validate the trust?
No. Section 701.1013 governs the information furnished to a third party and the
consequences of reliance. It does not replace the separate law governing creation or
validity of the trust.
Does this substitute-document rule govern disclosures to a beneficiary?
No. Subsection (1) specifically authorizes the certification in place of the trust
instrument when the recipient is a person other than a beneficiary.
Can the full instrument still be obtained during a trust lawsuit?
Yes. Section 701.1013(9) preserves the right to obtain it in a judicial proceeding
concerning the trust.
Statutes and sources
- Wis. Stat. § 701.1013(1)-(9) — availability, seven required information
groups, any-trustee authentication, the no-inaccuracy statement, omitted
dispositive terms, limited excerpts, reliance, enforcement, bad-faith-demand
remedies, and judicial access. Wisconsin State Legislature
(accessed 2026-07-31).
Source links
Every statute quoted above, linked, with the date we checked it.
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