Self-Settled Trusts: Choice-of-Law Difficulties under Restatement § ...

By:  Christian Corkery

St. John’s Law Student

American Bankruptcy Institute Law Review Staff

Applying Washington law, the United States Bankruptcy Court for the Western District of Washington in In re Huber held that prepetition transfers of the debtor’s assets to a self-settled trust created under Alaska state law were void under Washington law.[1]  The matter before the court involved a debtor who created a self-settled trust in Alaska to protect his assets from creditors.  Because Washington state law does not recognize self-settled trusts, the debtor created the trust in Alaska under Alaska state law, which permits self-settled trusts.  The trust agreement included a choice-of-law provision which stated that Alaska state law would govern all legal disputes.[2]  After the trust was created, the debtor filed for bankruptcy.[3]  The chapter 7 trustee brought an adversary proceeding seeking to recover the assets that the debtor transferred to the self-settled trust and to deny the debtor a discharge.[4]  The court declined to apply Alaska law because Washington had a public policy interest against self-settled trusts, and Alaska did not have a substantial relation to the trust.[5]  The debtor was not domiciled in Alaska, his assets were not located in Alaska, and the trust’s beneficiaries were not domiciled in Alaska.[6]  The court found that Alaska’s only connections were that it was the location of where the trust was to be administered and the location of one of the trustees.[7]  As such, the court applied Washington state law which states that transfers made to self-settled trusts are void as against existing or future creditors, and therefore, the trustee was able to recover the assets.[8]

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