Course 7 — Lesson 2 The Law for California Failed Trust Accountings

[Music] Now let's listen to the approach that Keith Davidson would take to fight for your inheritance what is Keith Davidson with Albertson and Davidson let's talk about the options that Neil and Leonard have in this situation Neil and Leonard are really in a mess because it seems as though Bert has wasted a lot of money he took a big mortgage out of the apartment buildings and he put it into speculative investments that appear as though they've lost all their value and they really haven't even received a proper trust accounting so the first step that I would take is option number 1 which is petition for an accounting we want a formal proper accounting from this trustee that complies with the requirements of the probate code so that we can get a better understanding of exactly what actions he's taken and where he's taken those actions option number 2 a petition for information then also would be good and we could include that in the same petition as our petition for an accounting so we can ask for both an accounting and information although the subpoena is really are going to do that for us and so option number 3 was to issue subpoenas to get the information directly from the financial institutions that's a very important step and we definitely need to do that unfortunately you can't issue subpoenas until you first file a lawsuit in probate court because you have to have a open court action in order to have the authority to issue subpoenas so I would do option one file for petition for an accounting and then as soon as I can I would then issue subpoenas directly to the financial institutions to get the financial documents from the source so that we can start taking a look at what exactly happened here and where things went wrong option number four trustee removal is definitely something that we want to consider along with option 5 where we want to hold the trustee liable for the harms that he is caused to this trust but it's a little premature at the outset to go for those type of because we first need to have an understanding of what exactly has happened here so that's what the accounting does for us so if we can get the accounting from the trustee and if we can issue subpoenas to the financial information then we're going to be armed with a lot more evidence and information and once we have that evidence and information then we can take the next step and that would be filing a petition to remove the trustee and also a petition to seek to hold the trustee liable for the damages and the type of damages in this case is going to be for the loss on the investments so if the trustee borrowed money from the apartments and wasted it on speculative investments we want the trustee to pay that money back because he shouldn't have invested in that way the probate code sets out rules for the way a trustee is properly supposed to invest and putting it in speculative investment typically does not meet the probate court rules for investing so we want the trustee to be held liable for that and make the trust whole for those harms and losses by paying the trust back but until we get the information we don't even know the extent of the damage so it's really a two step process in my view let's start by doing an accounting in subpoenas and once we get the information let's go for trustee removal and ultimately ask the trustee be held liable for the harms that he has caused. [Music] [Applause] [Music]