Course 6 — Lesson 2 The Law for California Failed Trust Distributions

[Music] Now let's listen to the approach that Stuart Albertson would take to fight for your inheritance Stuart Albertson with Alison and Davidson here and we've just heard about Frank Brian and Tom and believe it or not we actually see this hypothetical quite often people come in say I'm the beneficiary I'm a trust it's been two years since my dad three years since my dad died however long it's been and the trustees not giving me a report of any of the assets or the liabilities isn't telling me when distributions are gonna happen and so we take a look at the five options that are outlined for Brian in this case the way I would view this I would do the first four options but I would do those only after doing the fifth option so let's start with the fifth option first that is to ask Tom to distribute a rightful distribution in an email or a letter without resorting to going to court we should do this for several reasons number one Tom just might actually make the distribution number two if Tom doesn't make the distribution and doesn't respond to that request that will help us in options one through four option one is to remove the trustee and we certainly want to do that because Tom is failing to act and California law says a trustee must act they must follow the trust terms and here tom is refusing to follow the trust terms so we do want to ask the court to remove him we also want to ask that he account for his actions it's been a long time since Frank has passed away and we want to take a look at what tom has been doing since Frank has passed away what checks has Tom been writing has he taken any assets for himself has he made increase the rents on the apartments has he deposited those rents into a trust account those are all things we want to see in a trust accounting we also want to ask the court at option three for a petition for trust distribution tom is not following the terms of the trust he's not distributing the trust out as he's required to so we're gonna have to get Court to order him to do that or hopefully the court will remove him appoint another trustee and then they can make the distributions finally we won't know option four without a little bit of discovery and time going by but we do want to see if tom has damaged the trust since he's taken control based on the facts we know now tom has not given us any transparency about what's going on here he's treated the trust as if it's his own money he wants to continue to manage the apartments like he did when dad was alive he likely wants to continue to receive a check for that he probably is making upgrades to the apartments and maybe he's dipping into the trust accounts himself and taking money for dinners cruises trips you name it those kind of things can be happening if those things are happening that's a breach of trust and if it's a breach of trust we're entitled to money damages against Tom so again I think would be important to number one ask Tom informally in an email or a letter to make a rightful distribution to you when Tom doesn't we're gonna get combined options one through four bring them all at one time together and then we'll flush out to see whether the court will remove tom is trustee perhaps a point of interim trustee will see if the court will require Tom to account which based on these facts more than likely the court will require that he account and we'll see if we can get a preliminary distribution by either court order or by a interim trustee who the court appoints to take over for Tom since tom is refusing to act and finally if tom has damaged the trust if he hasn't managed the trust assets correctly just negligently or maybe intentionally if there are money damages that flow from that we will ask the court to award damages a surcharge against Tom so that money comes over to Brian to make Brian whole for his interest in the trust estate. [Music] [Applause] [Music]