Who’s the Boss? What’s the Difference Between a Trustee and an Executor?

[Music] Hi this Keith Davidson from Albertson and Davidson in this video I want to discuss the difference between a trustee and executor what's the difference between those two different titles and both trustees and executives are fiduciaries and a fiduciary is somebody who's put in charge of somebody else's money and the trustee is a fiduciary over the trust and an executor is a fiduciary over a probate estate a trustee is named as the manager of the trust in the trust document whereas an executor is named as the manager of the probate estate in a will if somebody dies without a will then the person who's appointed is called an administrator but it's really the same thing they're the person who's managing the probate estate now in a trusts estate that's created typically during somebody's lifetime which is why it's called a living trust or in legal jargon we called an inter vivos trust and whoever creates that trust is going to name the successor trustee who's going to take over and manage those assets make sure that everything is handled properly and ultimately distribute those assets out to the trust beneficiaries with an executor they're named in a will and so after somebody dies the executor has to go to a probate court and admit that well into the probate system into probate process which is really just a court process where the court oversees the management of the estate and ultimately the court oversees the distribution of that estate out to the beneficiaries of the will so in many ways an executor and a trustee serve the same function they both manage and ultimately distribute the estate's that they're in charge of the only difference is is that a trustee acts under a trust and can start acting once the prior trustee passes away or stops acting for any reason you don't have to go to court for a successor trustee to act whereas for an executor the only way that an executor can start acting is after you go to court and get the court permit to appoint the executor in that position. [Music] [Applause] [Music]