The respondent, a life beneficiary of a trust created by the will of George A. Sanderson, filed specifications of objection to the allowance of the fortieth and forty-first accounts of the petitioner as trustee undеr the will. After a hearing, the probate judge entered two decrees allowing the accounts. The respondent appeals, challenging the adequacy of the amounts paid to her by the trustee, the reasonableness оf the trustee’s accounting procedure, and the amount of its fees. Her attorney appeals from the denial of his petition to be allowed counsel fees from the trust assets.
Item 8 of Sanderson’s will directed the trustee to pay over during the fives of designated beneficiaries “such part of the income or principal as may be necessary in its judgment for the comfortable support of any one or more of said persons, *586 provided that in the judgment of said trustee any one or more of said persons shall need assistance and shall be worthy of the same, it being my intention hereby to carry out as far as possible the wishes of my wife’s father ... as expressed to me on many occasions, namely, that he wished to see to the comfortable support and maintenance of his descendants.” The life beneficiaries of the fund were named persons (descendants of the testator’s wife’s father) “and the childrеn or grandchildren of any of the above named persons who may be living at the time of my decease and born prior to my decease” with one named exception, not here material. Item 8 further directed the trustee, at thе death of the last survivor of the life beneficiaries, to transfer free of all trusts whatever remained of the fund “in such proportions as said trustee will decide will accomplish the most good, unto such charities in said Boston, said Berlin ... [in Massachusetts] and Kingston ... [in Rhode Island] as said trustee shall select.”
We summarize the report of material facts made by the judge. The periods covered by the contested accounts are from November, 1963, through November, 1965. The book vаlue of the trust, comprised of securities, is approximately $220,000, plus $30,000 in accumulated income to which a further accumulation of $3,500 in unexpended income was added during the accounting periods under consideration. The market value of the securities is approximately $423,000; During the accoimting periods there were fifteen potential beneficiaries of the trust, three of whom were over eighty years of age, two between seventy-five and eighty, five between sixty and seventy-five, and the remaining five between forty and sixty. The trustee each year sent a questionnaire to each potential beneficiary in order to determine which if any of them required assistance. In instances wherе answers to the questionnaire were incomplete, the trustee made no further inquiry of the applicant in order to make an accurate determination of his net worth. The total paid to ten beneficiaries who requested assistance was $7,836 for the fortieth accounting period and $10,850 for the next period. *587 One of the beneficiaries, who died during the accounting periods, who owned a home without a mortgage and had no other assets, was paid $100 а month, and $1,100 for hospital and medical expenses. Two other elderly beneficiaries, with incomes of $2,540 and $3,000, received monthly payments of from $35 to $50. Another elderly beneficiary, with an annual income of $1,985, received $50 a month plus $752.70 for the payment of medical bills. Two other beneficiaries had medical and dental bills paid. An army colonel, fifty years of age, married, and stationed in Europe, with an annual salary of $13,800, exclusive of allowances, received two payments of $500 toward the educational expenses of one of his two daughters. A married woman, age forty-six, whose husband’s salary was $10,000 a year, received $500 and $1,500, in the fortieth and forty-first accounting periods, respectively, tоward the educational expenses of her two children, seventeen and eighteen years of age. Another married woman, age forty-five, whose husband, a college professor, earned an annual salary of $16,500, received $500 and $1,250 in the fortieth and forty-first accounting periods, respectively, for educational expenses of her two children sixteen and eighteen years of age.
The respondent, age forty-seven, is single, with no dependents. She hаs no resources other than her salary. During the fortieth accounting period she was employed full time, and earned a gross salary of $4,625. The trustee paid her Federal income taxes, various personal bills, and an allowance of $65 a month, for a total of $2,074. In the forty-first accounting period she earned $5,292. The trustee again paid her Federal income taxes and various personal bills. For the last seven months of the period, her allowance wаs raised to $115 a month; the total disbursement to her for the year was $2,131.
The trustee charged a fee of five per cent of the income of the trust, and three-tenths of one per cent of the principal.
1. The judge found no facts tо support the respondent’s objections to the trustee’s accounting procedure, investment practice, or the amount of its fees. We agree. The trustee
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was not obliged to adhere strictly to the accounting form supplied by the Probate Court. General Laws c. 206, § 2, requires only a reasonable and orderly statement of the account, and does not require rigid adherence to any method of accounting.
Hutchinson
v.
King,
2. The judge found that the “method employed by the trustee in determining the amount of assistance required in each case to attain ‘comfortable support and maintenance’ was superficial. And having in mind the intent of the settlor, the amounts allocated not only to the respondent but to others of the beneficiaries were parsimonious.” With these observations we emphatically agree. The ultimate cоnclusion of the judge was, “However, the trustee was here given broad discretion and I do not quite find that it has been abused.”
This court recently said that in exercising a power of this sort a trustee is “unquestionably under an obligation to give serious and responsible consideration both as to the propriety of the amounts and as to their consistency with the
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terms and purposes of the trust.”
Holyoke Natl. Bank
v.
Wilson,
Another manifestation of the trustee’s indifference to its “obligation to give serious and responsible consideration both as to the propriety of the amounts and as to their consistency with the terms and purposes of the trust” is the payment, noted above, of sums to beneficiaries to assist in the education of their childrеn. In each of the three cases the family income was in excess of $10,000. In each case, laudable though the purpose may. have been, the contribution, strictly speaking, was not for “comfortable support” nor was the actual beneficiary a designated beneficiary.
Homans
v.
Foster,
3. We dо not reverse the decrees. Comfort cannot be retroactively given. Our order is that all accounts of the trustee, subsequent to the forty-first account under Item 8 of the will of George A. Sanderson, be so prepared or, if already prepared, be so modified to reflect a trusteeship that is neither superficial in its administration nor parsimonious in its spirit.
4. We think that the probate judge, upon further proceedings, might with complete propriety allow reаsonable counsel fees for the respondent’s attorney payable from the trust principal. We leave the matter entirely to his discretion.
5. The decrees are affirmed. The case is remanded to the Probate Court for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
So. ordered.