How Bad Trustees Can Influence Your California Trust

[Music] Hi this is Stuart aalverson without Gerson and Davidson and I want to talk to you about bad trustees doing bad things to your interest in a trust we do many many consoles with clients where they come in and say I'm the beneficiary of a trust I have right to these assets and the trustee is refusing to distribute those assets to me what am I to do and what I will tell you what you shouldn't do is write more than one letter let's be clear that letters don't work but you got to have some writing to the trustee saying hey I have a right to this distribution under the trust terms give me my trust distribution if the trustee still ignores you then unfortunately you're gonna have to go file a petition with the probate court there's that is the best way to hold one of these trustees accountable or get them to act in a way that you want them to in this example we would generally file a petition for instructions with the probate court asking the probate court to order the trustee to follow through with the trust terms and make the rightful distribution to the beneficiary so that is one way we hold these trustees accountable but what happens if the trustees is not making this distribution because they've gone and used these assets themselves in other words they have fraudulently taken these assets from the trust and use them in a manner that the trust does not permit perhaps they've taken vacations gone gambling spent money on their expenses and they're not giving you the distribution you're entitled to in that case not only are your going to want to file the petition for instructions that orders them the trustee to make the distribution to you you're going to want to go after that trustee for damages you're gonna want to surcharge that trustee you're going to ask the probate court to give you damages ordered damages against the trustee where they have to reach into their own pocket and pay you back money to you for the damages cost to the trust again we know only want to send one letter in these kind of cases just to set the record that we've tried to work with the trustee if the trustee still won't follow through what they're doing file a petition for instructions to get the court to order them to follow through and if you find out during that says that the trustee has stolen assets or misappropriated assets you're going to want to get the court or make a ask the court to impose a order for sanctions against the trustee so that they have to pay back the damage as they've done to the trust [Music] [Applause] you.