Trust Administration

Formal accountings can take up a lot of your time. When we say “formal accounting” we are referring to a Trust accounting that is prepared according to the format rules of the Probate Code (section 1060) and filed with the court to court approval. Why do formal accountings take so…

Sometimes Trustees refuse to provide beneficiaries with financial information. We can help. Before you demand a formal accounting in court, you may want to try requesting an accounting informally. You can use our ACCOUNTING DEMAND TEMPLATE and view the video instructions below. If you send an accounting demand letter and…

Yes and no. Pre-death accountings refer to an accounting for the period before your parent died. If there was a Trustee other than your parent, you may be able to obtain an accounting of their activity prior to a parent’s death. But getting a pre-death accounting is not absolute. The…

Yes, but the money must stay in the trust. This happens quite often with Bypass Trusts and Marital Trusts. A surviving spouse is named as the Trustee, but the Trusts themselves are irrevocable. They cannot be amended or changed, but they can be administered by the Trustee. Nearly every Trustee…

1. Follow Trust Terms The Trustee has a duty to follow the Trust terms. In other words, do as they’re told. May sound obvious, but it’s remarkable how often Trustees seem to get that one wrong. It is a basic Trustee duty that can be found at California Probate Code…

Bad Trustees can make your life a nightmare. When you are the beneficiary of a Trust, you really want a competent Trustee. They don’t have to be the best necessarily, but they do need to be competent, at least. The problem is that parents, the people who create Trusts, often…

Who makes decisions over your Trust assets? If you are the beneficiary of a Trust, you may be surprised to learn that the Trustee is the person, the only person, who decides what to do with your Trust assets. Whether it is buying, selling, paying, or bartering, the Trustee calls…

Can a Trustee refuse to sell a house owned by the Trust? Typically, the answer is no. But it depends on the circumstances of your Trust. Here is the most common scenario: You are a beneficiary of a Trust. There are two or more other beneficiaries. The Trust requires that…

Beneficiaries are supposed to receive reasonable information and timely distributions of their share of the Trust money and property. Unfortunately, many beneficiaries are kept in the dark and receive no Trust distributions. In other words, they receive no money and no information. It can be hard to know what to…

There are many examples of bad Trustees either failing or refusing to keep the Trust beneficiaries reasonably informed. Under Probate Code section 16060, the Trustee has a duty to keep the beneficiaries reasonably informed of the Trust and its administration. Further, under section 16060.7, the Trustee has a duty to…