Clause · Trusts & Estate Planning
Testamentary discretionary trust clauses for a will
Original clauses to insert in a will creating a discretionary testamentary trust for each primary beneficiary, with control, vesting, protective and record-keeping provisions that support the excepted trust income rules.
- Kind
- Clause. Wording to drop into a longer document.
- Where it applies
- Australia, New South Wales
- AI use
- Yellow AI can help in set ways. A lawyer checks specific points before use.
- Law stated as at
- 17 October 2026
- Status
- Maintained. Checked against the cited sources on 17 October 2026.
- Version
- 1
- Source
- Written for this library
When to use it
Use when instructions are to leave a share of the estate on a discretionary testamentary trust for a child or other primary beneficiary. Do not use for a special disability trust, a protective trust for a beneficiary who lacks capacity, or where the beneficiary should take outright.
How AI may be used
AI may produce first-draft clauses from the firm's precedent and the instruction sheet, and check them against the rest of the will. The structure, control and beneficiary choices, and the tax and family law effect, are the lawyer's responsibility.
AI may
- Insert the instructed names, roles and shares into the clauses and check defined terms against the rest of the will
- Produce a control table showing trustee, appointor and successor for each trust
- Flag clauses that conflict with gifts elsewhere in the will
AI must not
- Must not decide who controls each trust or who the beneficiaries are
- Must not advise the will-maker on tax or family law outcomes
- Must not prepare the will for signing without the lawyer reviewing every clause and the execution arrangements
The lawyer checks
- Instructions were taken from the will-maker personally and capacity and undue influence risks considered
- Control provisions match instructions and avoid conflict between siblings
- The record-keeping clause supports the excepted trust income rule for estate-sourced property
- Execution meets the formal requirements of the governing jurisdiction
Method: how the Green, Yellow and Red levels are decided. This is guidance for planning, not legal advice.
Read the full text
The full text is for signed-in accounts. It is free. When you sign in you can:
- read the whole precedent, with its drafting notes beside it;
- copy it, or download it as a Word file or Markdown;
- add it to your firm’s knowledge base, so colleagues can find it;
- let the AI tools you connect read it from that knowledge base.
The summary, the law it rests on and the AI-use guidance above stay public. Privacy.
More in Trusts & Estate Planning
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- Checklist: AI-assisted review of existing trust deeds and variations
All precedents for Trusts & Estate Planning · Tasks and AI use in this area