Current as of November 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.
Georgia did not adopt the Uniform Trust Code. Its Revised Georgia Trust Code of 2010, Chapter 12 of Title 53, borrows from it but sets its own reporting rules. A Georgia trustee owes an annual accounting with a defined content, but the trust instrument, or a writing from the settlor, can turn the duty off. Estates run through the probate court, where personal representatives file annual returns unless the will or the heirs excuse them.
Who must provide an accounting in Georgia
Section 53-12-243 has two parts. On reasonable request, the trustee must give any qualified beneficiary a report, to the extent relevant to that beneficiary's interest, about the trust's assets, liabilities, receipts and disbursements, the acts of the trustee, and the particulars of the administration, including the trust provisions that affect that beneficiary.
The trustee must also account at least annually, at termination of the trust, and on a change of trustees. The accounting goes to each beneficiary of an irrevocable trust to whom income or principal is required, or authorized in the trustee's discretion, to be distributed during the period, and to anyone who can revoke the trust. On a change of trustees, the outgoing trustee also accounts to the successor.
No report or accounting is owed to a beneficiary who has waived it in writing and not withdrawn the waiver. The larger exception is subsection (d): the reporting and accounting duties, and the common law duty to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed, do not apply to the extent the trust provides otherwise or the settlor directs otherwise in a writing delivered to the trustee.
What a Georgia trust accounting must contain
The statute is specific. The annual accounting contains a statement of receipts and disbursements of principal and income for the last complete fiscal year of the trust, or since the last accounting to that beneficiary, and a statement of the trust's assets and liabilities at the end of the period. Principal and income are kept separate by statute.
Income and principal allocation in Georgia
Allocation is governed by the Georgia Principal and Income Act, Article 17 of the trust code, enacted with the Revised Georgia Trust Code in 2010.
Filing an accounting with the Georgia probate court
Trust accountings go to beneficiaries, not the court. Section 53-12-243(e) preserves the court's power to require or excuse an accounting, and the Supreme Court of Georgia has held that the trial court has discretion on that question (Rollins v. Rollins, 2014).
Estates are different. Under section 53-7-67, a personal representative required to make annual returns files a verified accounting with the probate court within 60 days after each anniversary of qualification. The return covers the year's receipts and expenditures, includes an updated inventory of the estate's assets, and is supported by the original vouchers or an affidavit that they have been compared to the return. Under section 53-7-68, the personal representative mails a copy of the return to each heir or residuary beneficiary, and the relevant portion to each specific beneficiary, then files a verified statement that this was done.
These duties can be lifted. A will may dispense with annual returns under section 53-7-69, and the heirs or beneficiaries may, by unanimous written consent, ask the probate court to relieve the personal representative of them. An individual heir or beneficiary may also waive the right to receive a copy.
When a Georgia accounting is contested
Section 53-12-307 gives the report real weight. A claim for breach of trust is barred against a beneficiary who was sent a written report that adequately disclosed it, unless a proceeding begins within two years after the report was sent. A report discloses adequately if it gives enough information that the beneficiary knows of the claim or reasonably should have inquired into it. Without such a report, the period is six years from when the beneficiary discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the subject of the claim.
Georgia courts read "report" strictly. In Hasty v. Castleberry (2013) and Smith v. SunTrust Bank (2014), correspondence and an account statement that lacked the detail the statute contemplates did not start the two-year period, leaving the six-year period in place.
A successor trustee's claim against a predecessor must be brought within two years after the successor takes office.
How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps
We prepare Georgia trust accountings with principal and income stated separately as section 53-12-243 requires, built to the disclosure that starts the section 53-12-307 two-year period, and annual returns for personal representatives in probate court. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer; we do not prepare tax returns.
This page provides general information about Georgia fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes and court rules change. Verify the current text before relying on any of it, and consult counsel on questions of legal interpretation.
More: the uniform framework · all state pages · our services
Primary source: O.C.G.A. Title 53, Chapters 7 and 12.
Written by Christina Gutman, C.P.A. — Founder and Principal of T.E.A. Fiduciary. Christina is licensed as a Certified Public Accountant by the State of California and has specialized exclusively in fiduciary accounting for over a decade, preparing trust, estate, and conservatorship accountings for law firms, professional fiduciaries, trust companies, family offices, and individual trustees nationwide. She has also served as a forensic consultant in contested accounting matters. More about Christina
