Short answer. No. The Civil Code flatly bars guardians and trustees from donating property entrusted to them, with no exception written into the rule. A guardian holds the ward's property to manage and preserve it, not to dispose of it as a gift, and that limit applies regardless of the guardian's good intentions.
What the law says
Guardians and trustees cannot donate the property entrusted to them.
Civil Code, Article 736 — Guardians and Trustees Cannot Give It Away. Read the full provision →
A flat prohibition, not a rule about consent
Article 736 does not say a guardian needs permission before donating a ward's property, or that a court can authorize it under the right circumstances — it says guardians and trustees cannot donate the property entrusted to them, without qualification. The provision treats the two roles together because both hold property that belongs to someone else for that person's benefit, not their own. Whatever discretion a guardian has to manage, invest, or spend on the ward's behalf, giving the property away as a gift falls outside it entirely.
Why donation is treated differently from other management
A donation is an act of pure liberality — the donor gets nothing in return. A guardian managing a ward's estate is expected to act for the ward's advantage, and a gift, by definition, produces no advantage to the ward at all; it only benefits the donee. That mismatch is the reason the law does not leave donation to the guardian's judgment the way it might leave, say, an ordinary expenditure for the ward's support or education. The property was entrusted to the guardian, and entrustment does not carry the power to give it away.
What "entrusted" property covers
The prohibition reaches property the guardian or trustee holds for the ward or beneficiary — the ward's own assets under the guardian's administration. It does not stop the guardian from making gifts out of the guardian's own separate property; the limit attaches to the property relationship, not to the person's capacity to donate generally. If you are unsure whether a particular asset counts as entrusted property or the guardian's own, that distinction is often where a dispute actually turns.
If a donation like this has already happened
Because Article 736 withholds the authority to donate in the first place, a guardian or trustee acting outside that authority has no power to bind the ward's property by such a gift. If you are a ward, an heir, or a successor guardian discovering that entrusted property was given away, the starting point is documenting what was donated, when, and under whose administration, since a guardian's lack of authority to donate is the central fact any recovery effort will need to establish.