What is an appointor?
The appointor may remove or appoint trustees and therefore has ultimate control of the trust. This power of appointment and removal is a discretionary power and can be exercised at any time by the appointor. Therefore, the appointor has a great deal of control over the testamentary discretionary trust (TDT), as they effectively control the office of the trustee. The appointor may retire and appoint someone else as a replacement. The appointor may also appoint a successor and should consider doing so. This means that the power of appointment is flexible, and the current appointor is able to nominate who will succeed them. In trusts that are designed to last many years (as is normally the case with TDTs) the appointor role is the tool by which control of the trust (and in turn the assets) is handed from one generation to the next.
