Free Limited Power Of Attorney

Q: A character will be going into suspended animation for some time. He has very clear ideas on how he wants his money invested while he's not supervising it. He wants those ideas implemented, and not deviated from. He specifically wants the trustees (?) barred from using their own judgement if it differs from his. How would this be set up? Probably under US law, but possibly under the laws of some other country. I'm assuming that at some point over the decades or centuries, the trustees do find a judge who will free them to do as they think best. And: "This bull market will never go down! It's unlike all bull markets of the past because...."

A: if I had a client come to me with this, I'd start off by working out how much of his money he could put in places where it wouldn't need to be touched, while he was out cold. Deposit accounts, tracker funds, blue-chips with long trading histories, gilts with governments likewise, that kind of thing. That removes great chunks of discretion right there: you grant a limited power of attorney to some professional - fees to be arranged out of funds under management - with instructions to take his fee and file the quarterly statements and otherwise do nothing but let the funds lie where they are, attracting whatever interest they get. The rest - assuming we're fairly safe in our client being legally "alive" during the period of sus-an - he retains legal and beneficial ownership of, and gives management of it to a firm or corporation, again under a power of attorney rather than a trust settlement. A separate set of managers, for maximum safety, than he's got the zero-management stuff

with. He'll lose more in fees, but if he leaves detailed instructions with them they'll follow them as being the lowest-risk way to handle the fund, and probably he'll sign some kind of indemnity against losses incurred in accordance with his instructions. Anyone putting his assets in trust while he's out but not dead is, to say the least, taking the risky approach. Trustees already have significant legal routes to getting their powers of investment enlarged - in English law at any rate - and have a duty to consider exercising those powers if they think the funds can be better managed by going beyond what they're allowed to do by the instrument of settlement.