The Trustee Act 1925 (15 & 16 Geo. 5. c. 19) is an act of the Parliament of the United Kingdom passed on 9 April 1925, which codified and updated the regulation of trustees' powers and appointment in England and Wales. It accompanied the land reform legislation of the 1920s. It came into effect on 1 January 1926.
There is a discretionary power available to the courts under this section which allows a trustee's personal liability for a breach of trust to be lifted if it appears to the court that the trustee "has acted honestly and reasonably, and ought fairly to be excused for the breach of trust and for omitting to obtain the directions of the court in the matter in which he committed such breach". The trustee could be relieved from personal liability "either wholly or partly".
In a 2012 ruling concerned with liability for payment of a mortgage sum fraudulently requested by imposters, the High Court assessed the requirements of honesty and reasonableness separately and found that the solicitors who had wrongly handed over payment had acted "honestly" but not "reasonably". In the Court of Appeal, this ruling was overturned and the circumstances allowed the solicitors to be "fairly excused" their breach of trust.
Section 70 of the act repealed 15 enactments, listed in the second schedule to the act.
The Trustee Act 2000 (c. 29), which came into force on 1 February 2001, repealed part I of the act and replaced the investment powers of trustees with a broader statutory duty of care and a general power of investment.