Current as of November 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.
Vermont adopted the Uniform Trust Code as Title 14A in 2009. It keeps the uniform annual report but rewrote the limitation rule in a way no other state on these pages has: a beneficiary who finds a report insufficient can extend the deadline by six months with a written notice, and if no proceeding follows, the report is conclusively presumed adequate.
Who must provide an accounting in Vermont
Section 813 requires the trustee to keep the qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed about the administration and the material facts they need to protect their interests, and to respond promptly to a beneficiary's request for information unless that would be unreasonable. The trustee of a charitable trust need not give notice to the Attorney General under the section except on request or in the court proceedings the section lists.
On request, the trustee furnishes a copy of the trust instrument. Within 60 days after accepting a trusteeship, the trustee notifies the qualified beneficiaries of the acceptance and of the trustee's name, address and telephone number. Within 60 days after learning that an irrevocable trust has been created, or that a revocable trust has become irrevocable, the trustee tells them of the trust's existence, the settlor's identity, their right to request a copy of the trust instrument, and their right to a trustee's report. The trustee also gives advance notice of any change in compensation.
The report goes at least annually and at termination to the distributees or permissible distributees of income or principal, and to other beneficiaries who request it. A beneficiary may waive reports and later withdraw the waiver.
What a Vermont trust accounting must contain
The report covers the trust property, liabilities, receipts and disbursements, including the source and amount of the trustee's compensation, and a listing of the trust assets with market values if feasible. On a vacancy with no cotrustee remaining, the former trustee sends the report. A personal representative may send it for a deceased trustee, and a guardian or an agent under a power of attorney for an incapacitated trustee.
When a Vermont accounting is contested
Section 1005 bars a proceeding for breach of trust more than one year after the beneficiary was sent a report that adequately disclosed the potential claim. A report discloses adequately if it gives enough information that the beneficiary knows or has reason to know of the claim, or had a duty to inquire further and the inquiry would have revealed it. The report need not state the deadline.
If, within that year, the beneficiary gives the trustee written notice that the report did not contain enough information to decide whether to sue, the time is extended by six months. If no proceeding is brought within the extended time, the report is conclusively presumed to have disclosed any potential claim adequately.
Otherwise, the outer limit is three years from the first of the trustee's removal, resignation or death, the end of the beneficiary's interest, or the end of the trust.
How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps
We prepare Vermont annual and termination reports under section 813, complete enough to start the section 1005 period and to answer a beneficiary's request for more information. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer; we do not prepare tax returns.
This page provides general information about Vermont 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: Vermont Statutes Title 14A (Vermont Trust Code), Vermont General Assembly.
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
