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| Will this get a CPG? |
Our first story is about how much a remainder beneficiary can dig into a revocable trust while the settlor is still alive and also about a missed shot at trustee removal.
Marsha set up a revocable trust in 2009 for her own benefit during life, with her daughter and three stepdaughters (including petitioner Jennifer) as equal takers at death. Years later, the daughter and then Marsha's husband joined as co‑trustees. Jennifer went to probate court to get the trust document and then pushed for more information, arguing Marsha had become incapacitated, the trust was now effectively irrevocable, and she counted as a qualified beneficiary with rights to administration details under this statute. She also accused the daughter‑trustee of taking a seven‑figure loan from trust assets and using collection pressure on Jennifer as leverage.
The probate division gave Jennifer the trust instrument but shut down the rest, reading this statute to mean that as long as the trust is revocable, the trustees’ duties run only to the settlor, not to remainder beneficiaries.
Jennifer appeals.
On appeal, SCOV agrees on the probate division's core point, leaning on Vermont's choice not to tie the settlor's powers statute to the settlor's capacity and on the code comments confirming that incapacity does not convert a revocable trust into an irrevocable one. So no broad information rights for Jennifer under the duty-to-inform statute while Marsha is alive and the trust remains revocable.
As Billy mays used to say, "But Wait, There's More!"
In her back‑and‑forth with the probate court, Jennifer had asked to amend to seek removal of the daughter as co‑trustee under the trustee-removal-and-replacement statute, citing the self‑loan and other conduct. The probate division never grappled with that request and dismissed the case. SCOV points out that the removal-and-replacement statute (and its comments) assumes beneficiaries can seek removal of a trustee of a revocable trust once the settlor is incapacitated, and that trial courts are supposed to exercise discretion on amendment requests. Treating silence as a ruling is not the same thing.
So SCOV agrees with the trial court's decision not to require more documentation disclosure out of a revocable trust, but kicks the case back to the probate division so it can can decide, this time on purpose, whether Jennifer may amend her petition to pursue trustee removal. In re Trust of Marsha Milot, 2026 VT 7 (mem.)
Looks like this project won't stay retired. Apple Hill Solar had a standard-offer contract (SOC) from 2014 with a 2016 commissioning deadline and kept pushing the deadline back while it fought over its certificate of public good (CPG). The CPG fight ended with two denials on the merits, and Apple Hill III sealed the last one. Before that, though, Apple Hill had filed a fifth request to extend commissioning to twelve months after the mandate in its then‑pending CPG appeal, but the Public Utility Commission (PUC) did not rule on that request until 2024.
By then, the PUC said, even if it granted the request, the extension would have run out in 2022, the project still lacked a CPG and so could not be built, and the contract itself said it became "null and void" if milestones were missed without an order to the contrary. Apple Hill tried reconsideration and a sixth extension request, arguing misreading, inconsistency with other cases, and constitutional violations; the PUC denied both motions and stated the contract was not coming back.
SCOV affirms, holding that the PUC's reading of the fifth request was reasonable, that any relief on those terms was moot, and that both statute and contract let the SOC lapse when Apple Hill missed the deadline without an extension in hand. Other projects like Chelsea Solar do not rescue Apple Hill because those cases still involved live CPG paths; here the CPG process was over, and Apple Hill's constitutional arguments find no traction. In re Apple Hill Solar LLC, 2026 VT 8.
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