Category: Trust Administration

accounting please

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 the Trustee still refuses to […]

accounting please

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 problem is that while your […]

can they sell it

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 has the right to sell […]

professional trustees

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 choose the wrong person to […]

trust king

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 the shots. That’s just how […]

refuse to sell

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 all Trust assets be distribution […]

forcing imitation from bad trustees

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 do when you are kept […]

Trustee Keeping You In the Dark illustration with a flashlight

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 provide the terms of the Trust to […]

When a Beneficiary is Trustee

In California, Trustees can also be beneficiaries of a Trust. Even if the Trust has multiple beneficiaries. That means one person can be both the Trust manager (Trustee) and benefit from the Trust (beneficiary). You may ask ‘isn’t this a conflict of interest?’ Maybe yes and maybe no. Anytime one person is acting as both […]

Can the Trustee Evict Me

If you are an occupant of a property owned by a trust, here is what you should know. The trustee is the legal owner of the trust property and may have the right to evict you, even if you are beneficiary. The first thing you should do is ask the trustee for a copy of […]