Do Trustees Get Paid?

Hi this is Stuart Albertson with Albertson and Davidson and we get this question routinely we have beneficiaries come to us of a trust and say my brother or sister is the trustee of the trust and they're saying they're gonna take a hundred and fifty thousand dollars in trustees fees is that allowed and the answer is well it depends and of course it depends on the facts and circumstances in the case one hundred fifty thousand might be appropriate in one case for trustees fees but probably not appropriate in most cases so some trustees have the idea that they can pay themselves one percent or one point five percent or even in some cases I've seen two percent of the value of the trust estate and that's just wrong most courts that we've been in front of most probate judges are not going to award a lady something that's not a professional trustee professional fiduciary more than a reasonable hourly rate and that reasonable hourly rate it depends on what jurisdiction you're in it's gonna be somewhere between $30 an hour and a hundred dollars an hour and that's a rough estimate every courts gonna be a little bit different I will say this if you're a trustee I'll a trustee not a professional trustee and you expect to be paid for the services you provide to the trust you need to keep track of the things you've done for the trust with a log and you need to write entries showing everything you do for the trust and how much time you spent doing it then if there's an argument about how much you should be paid an hour that's a negotiation that can happen between the beneficiaries and the trustee and then you just multiply it by the hours that you've worked but at least you as the trustee will have a log that is made at the same time you're providing the services to show that you actually did the work it's only an issue of how much you should be paying albertson and Davidson is here to help you fight for your inheritance check out al dev law calm for our complete library of helpful legal videos and articles from your favorite California trust and we'll litigation law firm Albertson and Davidson LLP. [Music]