28Power to employ agents

28 Power to employ agents

S. 28(1) amended by Nos 9/2002 s. 3(Sch. item 14.1), 18/2005 s. 18(Sch. 1 item 109.2).

(1) Trustees or personal representatives may, instead of acting personally, employ and pay an agent, whether a legal practitioner, banker, financial services licensee, regulated principal, or other person, to transact any business or to do any act required to be transacted or done in the execution of the trust, or the administration of the testator's or intestate's estate, including the receipt and payment of money, and shall be entitled to be allowed and paid all charges and expenses so incurred, and shall not be responsible for the default of any such agent if employed in good faith.

(2) Trustees or personal representatives may appoint any person to act as their agent or attorney for the purpose of selling, converting, collecting, getting in, and executing and perfecting assurances of, or managing or cultivating, or otherwise administering any property, real or personal, moveable or immoveable, subject to the trust or forming part of the testator's or intestate's estate, in any place outside Victoria or executing or exercising any discretion or trust or power vested in them in relation to any such property, with such ancillary powers, and with and subject to such provisions and restrictions as they think fit, including a power to appoint substitutes, and shall not, by reason only of their having made such appointment, be responsible for any loss arising thereby.

S. 28(3) amended by No. 11/2001 s. 3(Sch. item 81.3).

(3) Without prejudice to such general power of appointing agents as aforesaid—

S. 28(3)(a) amended by No. 18/2005 s. 18(Sch. 1 item 109.2).

(a) a trustee may appoint a legal practitioner or a banker to be his agent to receive and give a discharge for any money or valuable consideration or property receivable by the trustee under the trust, by permitting the legal practitioner or banker to have the custody of, and to produce, a deed or instrument under the Transfer of Land Act 1958, having in the body thereof or endorsed thereon a receipt for such money or valuable consideration or property, the deed or instrument being executed, or the endorsed receipt being signed, by the person entitled to give a receipt for that consideration[5];

S. 28(3)(b) amended by No. 18/2005 s. 18(Sch. 1 item 109.2).

(b) a trustee shall not be chargeable with breach of trust by reason only of his having made or concurred in making any such appointment; and the production of any such deed or instrument by the legal practitioner or banker shall have the same statutory validity and effect as if the person appointing the legal practitioner or banker had not been a trustee;