Episode 11- Stand, Fight, Win! LIVE: Real Lawyers, Real Answers – Sibling Fights

Sibling relationships can be fun and enjoyable but they can also be complex and downright difficult it all comes down to being different having different lifestyles different experiences different philosophies and different problems siblings can carry on for years and years ignoring their differences and enjoying their separate lives and then one day a parent begins to decline or passes away and siblings are suddenly forced together to accept or challenge the final instructions for their parents property and assets welcome to the stand fight when live stream real lawyers real answers I'm Keith Davidson hi I'm Stuart Albertson and we are a couple of real lawyers sometimes people call us real other things but we are real lawyers this live stream is hosted by Albertson and Davidson LLP this is being broadcast live on YouTube and Facebook you can also find recordings of this broadcast on those two platforms after we're done being live and you can always find an audio only version of this live stream on our podcast either at pod bean where you can find it under stand fight when podcast or on what's the Apple thing where they have podcasts iTunes itunes it's kind of a big one I - yeah alright brain freeze for a moment there all right so today we're talking about sibling fights so you have siblings I do you have two I have two siblings wonderful wholesome siblings yep they are very obedient everything I asked them to do it's not been my experience but okay and I have a little sister and who I love very much but siblings cause problems when it comes to trust in the state's cases and if you were to think about all of our trust in the state cases what percentage of them have to do with one sibling finding another sibling oh gosh I haven't thought about that but I'm assuming it's a high percentage I would give it probably about 70% of our cases you think I would go with that yeah I mean a vast majority of them and then of course there's always step parents and a few you know bad actors and all that but a majority of the cases have to do with siblings so let's start off with our breaking news and we'll see if we can delve into this topic a little deeper and breaking news we're dealing with the case by the name of troll and versus troll and Patrick troll and versus Nellie trolling of its troll and a troll and but anyway this comes to us from the sixth Appellate District and I actually have the site this time which is 31 Cal app v 939 all right there's a case just aside can you read that so well thank you tell us about the fight and everything so in this case you have six siblings so right there I know that we're probably in business if you have six siblings you know you're probably going to be visiting one of us and five of the siblings did not like the fact that or five of the siblings agreed that the trust should stay in trust like indefinitely so the parent dies and five of them say let's just keep this thing rolling and one sibling disagreed and that one sibling had the trust terms on their side because the trust said that after the mom died and once all the children reached age 30 the trust was supposed to terminate and just be distributed out so that's what we call an outright distribution so the one sibling said you know give me my 1/6 share and the other five said no we took a vote and a majority of us want it to remain in trust and we believe that the trust allows us to do that so we're not giving you anything so they went to court and the one the the black sheep of the family I guess the the odd-man-out decided to ask the court to order a distribution and remove the trustees so what do you think the court did the trial court did I'm assuming that the trial court agreed with the minor minority beneficiary and said that the property had to be distributed out and maybe even sold before was distributed out yeah that's exactly what happened so the trial court said yeah you're right this says he has to be distributed yes we're gonna distribute it and the trial court removed the trustees and even awarded attorneys fees which is pretty rare but the trial court did it so went up on appeal and the five siblings had a couple of arguments so their first argument is well if you read you know how the trust has like the good stuff which is about how it's going to be distributed when somebody passes away that's what we call the substantive provisions but down below there's all sorts of boilerplate language right and some of the boilerplate languages hey trusty you have a right to manage the assets you have a right to hold these things in different accounts you have a right to sell or buy all these various powers of the trustee so the five kids argued that those powers meant that they could continue to hold the trust indefinitely because the trustee was given the power to do that and they tried to say that there was an ambiguity between those general powers and the terms of the trust that say that the trust means it must be distributed outright at age thirty so what do you think the how would you view that if you were at Pella Corey well I would view a lot as I've learned practicing in these cases in that when there's a specific instruction in a trust you tend to follow it over a general statement and the general statement here are the trustees powers which are boilerplate included in every single trust document and so there's not an ambiguity in my mind when a decedent says at age thirty distribute the trust and I think that's what you're going to have to do yeah and that's exactly what the appellate court said is where's the ambiguity and besides the people who are objecting didn't have any evidence of a different intent anyway and the trust you know the court has to look at the terms of the trust and a provision that says distributed age 30 is more specific than the general powers and so that's what the courts going to apply and and and also I think isn't the probate code say that we have to read the trust terms in harmony with one another so and that makes sense because when you have a specific instruction that says you have to distribute by age 30 that's not saying those boilerplate general provisions where the trustees were allowed to make loans and administer the trust to keep everything going it's just saying within the confines of making a distribution at age 30 this is what you can do with your powers as trustees yeah that's right or before age 30 so if somebody's 28 then yeah those powers are gonna be used but at age 30 then something else is gonna happen so that's exactly right and then there was another provision that the five beneficiaries tried to hang their hat on which is it said upon the death of the mom the trustee shall distribute the remaining principle in any accumulating income which that's all the trust property or continued the trust for the the beneficiaries here under named under terms and conditions as follows and what followed was when the beneficiary reached age 30 then their share would be distributed to them so they tried to say well it says the trust income will either be distributed or continued continue the trust and so that seems to indicate that you could do one or the other you could all keep the trust going or you can distribute it distribute it but what the court pointed out is yeah but you you're ignoring the rest of the sentence which says according to the following terms and one of the following terms is at age 30 you kick it out and so that was I thought that was it was an interesting argument I guess just because I think the lawyers were getting a little creative they're trying to point to that language but it doesn't make any logical sense because it misses the rest of it you wonder how bad their arguments were to select from that they were using that as an argument there really wasn't very good arguments in this case from what I can hear yeah no there wasn't and so I think of the appellate court upheld the trial court in terms of now this was interesting the appellate court said the trial court got it right when they said it must be distributed so that's absolutely correct where the trial court got it wrong though is in ordering a sale of the assets the trustees could choose to do that or choose not to do that I mean if they could buy out this beneficiary they should have the option to do that so the appellate court reversed that and said look the trustees have a right to try to buy this person out if they want to and which is interesting because that raises a whole host of conflicts of interest right so I'm curious if the appellate court would say that because now you're gonna have trustees that are gonna want something trustees that are ostensibly supposed to treat all the beneficiaries the same wanting to treat themselves better well the trustees also beneficiaries in this case they were also beneficiaries but the appellate court was kind of punting on this one and saying hey the trial court didn't even consider this so we're gonna send it back down let the trial court work it out okay so it wasn't I was probably stating it too strongly but it was kind of like well say selling the assets isn't the only option and the trial court didn't consider any other options so we want the trial court to consider some other well there's nothing like an appellate court here in this case sending something back to be get it even longer yeah good old pillow court and then the other thing that they overturned was the attorneys fees in the trustee removal so they said the trustee shouldn't be removed yet because once you have this order that the assets should be distributed removal may or may not be appropriate and so they won the trial court to reconsider that as well which I thought was really strange I mean it seems to me that if you have trustees who are refusing to make a distribution why shouldn't they be removed well it seems like that would be something that most appellate courts and again I haven't read the case like you did they would leave that to the discretion of the trial judge because the trial judge was there to hear what had happened and obviously the trial judge thought something had happened here that rose to the level where the trustee should be surcharge for the attorney's fees spent yeah so I mean a lot of that was sent back down which like you said is gonna mean that the case will continue and it'll be litigated which means there's a good chance it'll be settled right because at some point the costs are just going to outweigh anything you can do so that's a really good example though of a sibling acting as trustee and thinking that they have more powers and options than they really do not only in that case though with the trip with the trustee sibling act in that way but then they've got agreement from what eighty percent of the other siblings yeah and so that you know that's a lot of peer pressure right n it's like hey why are you trying to mess up this ongoing business we've got a good deal going here right and this one beneficiary say no I want my I want my inheritance it seems like it happens a lot where people have this idea that Trust can just continue as if their corporations are something and they're not I mean at some point especially in California at some point a trust must terminate they cannot go and on in perpetuity well the other thing we probably heard in this case and and what we didn't hear it in a pellet opinion was I'm sure that the other five siblings were saying well this is what mom and dad wanted they always talked about and they said this trust would be here for all of us there'd be income that would come off of it but that's why it's important to make sure that when I'm husband and wife are doing a trust if you don't want the assets distributed at 30 you need to put that in there you need to put that this can be an ongoing concern and the trustee has the right to do that and if you don't put that in and in fact you say no there should be a distribution at age thirty well as that's what it is it is what it is yeah and I don't understand why people have such a hard time with that it's a you know if that's what the Trust says you have to follow it and it doesn't matter that five out of six beneficiaries want to keep it in trust it trust terms control well and this reminds me a little bit of another case we had where we had a trustee that didn't like a beneficiary I think that the trustee was a female and she had a brother so it's just the two of them that were left after the parents died and the brother was married to a man and she didn't like the fact that the her brother was married to a man and then the brother died too right and the brother had done the proper estate planning to give everything he had under that trust to his husband yes and so the sister was very much against that and decided that under the trust terms she did not have to give these assets to the husband and I remember there there was a specific instruction that said that all assets would go to that then living children right and in that case the the brother before he died he was a then living child and there was some other general provisions where it sounded like maybe you wouldn't have to make that distribution to tell a certain time had passed or whatever but the court there in that case you are what did the court say in that case the court said that then living means at the moment that the parent died it went to the people who were then living at that moment and so the son was still living and so he took and even though he was deceased before the distribution was made he still went to his estate meaning that it still went to his husband and so it was a good result for the husband but yeah I mean that's another example of a child wanting to rewrite the rules right and you can't I mean the parent writes the rules right and if the parent wrote the rules you got to follow the rules and we've learned now that the more specific a trust term is the more likely it's going to be enforced correct yeah no I agree with that for sure all right let's move on to asked and answered we have probably more questions than we can really get to on this topic and we assembled a ton of questions even before the broadcast that we've been asked but why don't we switch over to Kayla and see what questions we have Kayla come in Kayla Kayla so we have a question from Facebook and the question is my parent died two years ago and my sibling is living in trust property and not paying rent what can I do okay so that's a really big question and so do you want to start on that one I should I buy a gun I think I think the implication is what can I legally do we're gonna let's keep when you can legally buy a gun in California yeah so this is the issue where the trustee is probably living with mom or dad during mom and dad's life at the trust home and one of the beneficiaries and then mom passes away and dad passes away and the beneficiary or trustee is still living it at home well they don't want to change that they want to continue to live there right and they want to continue to live there under the same terms they were living under before which was likely rent-free yeah it's a good term and it is a good term and so now you have another probably responsible person that's gone out and done something with their life and they're saying hey I'm based on principle not on the money just on the principle I want my half of the trust estate well what are you do can you do this on your own Keith can you just go and I mean should you go knock on the door and ask them to leave should you call the police I mean what is it you can do to get that person out well it's a tough position because no I don't think you can do it on your own because I think it's fairly complicated you're gonna have to go to court and and you can't just do an eviction action because a lot of times people will try to evict a beneficiary out of trust property and sometimes it works sometimes you can't get an eviction but most of the time the court doing the eviction is not going to allow that to happen because the person living there does have some beneficial interest to that home so let's say the kids let's say there's two kids we'll keep it simple they each are gonna get half of the home but one of them's living there one of them is not and like in the question they've been living there for two years okay well at some point that has to stop and so the person living there has to pay rent fair market rent to the other owner or they have to get out those are the really the only two options and/or they have to buy out the non occupying beneficiary so if one child is living in the home and the other one's not then and you don't want to sell the house because the person wants to keep living there then they're gonna have to refinance or find a friend who has enough money to pay off the other beneficiary those are really your two options well what if the trustee is the beneficiary that's living in the house what if they go ahead and say okay I just need it out 1/2 the property to my brother there's the deed and they continue to reside there does that change the facts it kinda doesn't change the ultimate results so the trustee could distribute the house 50/50 to the beneficiaries just do a new deed and say well it's not a trust asset and now that beneficiary is forced to co-own with that trustee forever that asset right no you can you can do a partition action so co-owners of real property once the property comes out the trust and two people own it jointly and one of them's living there and the other is not the non occupying joint owner can bring up partition action and force this the property either to be divided or if it can't be divided it'll force a sale the court will order a sale and usually what happens is you file a petition action you litigate it for a while and whoever wants to keep the property will buy out the other one so you can do that in a partition action or you can do it in a trust action before the asset comes out of a trust it's kind of the same result which is you're going into court saying hey court you either need to order a sale of the property or this other person needs to get off their Duff and refinance the property and buy me out one or the other okay and one last comment I would have a question for you as the trustee who did reside there for two years are they gonna have to pay some rent out of their share to the other beneficiary in theory yes in practice it's a mixed bag so you're gonna have some cases where you'll might be able to get some amount of rent for some amount of time in my experience most judges are not going to force somebody to pay two years worth of rent because what they're gonna do is say well they're living in the home rent-free they were taking care of mom or dad let's just assume that that's true whether they were or not they should be given some reasonable amount of time to move out before they have to pay rent and so you're probably going to have about a four to six month period time when most judges in my experience are not going to tag them with rent but if it's two years yeah they're probably gonna have to pay some amount of rent right and then you have to argue over well what's the fair market value of the rent and you know so it boils down to a number what number are you gonna get and the practical side of this is most these cases are going to settle in mediation and so then it's just a it's a horse trading issue in mediation how much rent are they gonna pay that's right and the other thing I would say is don't wait two years and so if you have one of these situations on your hands try to take action as soon as you can because if you let it go 2 3 4 years trying to get that much rent is very difficult when and that's a good point you just made the judge may say no you sat around on your rights and didn't do anything and I've seen that happen right what's our next question Kayla okay the next question is my sibling borrowed thousands of dollars from my parent before they passed away does my sibling have to repay that money no because it's a gift key yeah that's what you're gonna hear that's what you're gonna hear the person who received the loan it never it's never alone after death it was either a gift it was either a gift or it was forgiven at death it was always forgiven yes it's either forgiven or a gift so the problem with in my opinion the problem with these loans that are given to one child is they're typically not documented how are they documented it's a family loan parents parents you know they give money to the kid and say hey you're gonna pay me back well not only that but I think that sometimes there's a good number of times where the parent honestly did give one child money probably not expecting to get paid back but when the other child found out about it they called it alone they call them home because they don't want to deal with it right what the yeah you know like yeah I mean I'm a parent I have two kids I get that like I probably would lie I don't want to deal with it but under the probate code you're not going to be able to get any money's given to a child pre-death you're not gonna be able to get that back as an advancement or a loan or anything unless there's some documentation either documentation outside the trust or some very specific documentation inside of Atrocitus so the trust has to say it was an advancement or the has to say it was a loan in a we have seen trust where they say I have loaned my child money and they're gonna have to take that as part of their share when you figure out the distribution and so good planning will include stuff like that right but bad planning will be silent to it and then when these loans are given there's no documentation and then you have siblings arguing over it was alone and then you get you know Stewart's representing a beneficiary who received the loan it's no no it was a gift or was forgiven and mom and dad liked me best anyway and so you know that's that's what you're gonna hear and that's very very difficult to fight against that and right pinion right okay the next question is my sibling says my mom left everything to them don't I have a right to some of my mom's property well I say first of all you need to confirm if that's true or not so if everything was left to the sibling there's a presumably a will or a trust so get a copy of it and take a look but let's assume that there is a will or trust and it does leave everything to their sibling and nothing to them then mom is is mom completely entitled to do that and what about the unfair unfair impression that leaves on the child who didn't get it get anything I think this is the hardest part for people to understand children to understand is that parents have the right to be unfair if they have proper capacity and if they're not being unduly influenced and if the child is a certain age right yes so if they're adults yeah so if they're a child then yes you're gonna have to pay child support right and those are obligations that a parent can't get out of but if they are an adult child you know we've had cases where children have gone way out of their way for the parent and have helped them even though the parent was verbally abusive and maybe physically abusive and they were just mean and nasty and yet still the child took care of them and then at the last minute the parent disinherited him and the child standing there saying but wait that's not fair I went through all this it's just not fair right and we can still challenge that based on lack of capacity undue influence but you're not going to be able to challenge it on grounds of unfairness and so parents are allowed to be mean and nasty and pher if they're of sound mind right and so I think what you're telling us is there's really two roads to this analysis the first road is mom truly did intend to disinherit that person and did and that is unfair there's no doubt about it it sounds like it'd be unfair under the the factual center are you painted it can also be the other road where mom and dad didn't intend to do this is somebody else exercised undue influence over mom and dad to get them to do this and in what in that case what do you how do you address that then you'd have to sue and try to overturn the documents for lack of capacity or undo him and there'd be a thrust contest right be a chess contest that's right yeah good old-fashioned trust contest which ironically the child then has the burden of proof on so they have to prove that any of those things existed well let me ask you this and and be as honest as you can in this answer we have clients to come to us and they say it's not about the money and I tend to agree with most of them that's true it's not about the money it always comes down to money but what is it that this person's looking for when they're doing this trust contest and they're suing because they believe that they're bad acting brother or sister got mom or dad to write them out of the trust what are you really suing for there when you're bring in that trust contest I think respect yes I think you're going you you want the respect of being an equal child under the eyes of your parent and I think leaving an inheritance is the last act that your parent does to give you acceptance and approval and respect well let me ask you I mean I know your relationship with your mom I know it's a good relationship if somehow or another and not saying your sister would do this but let's say that she does exercise undue influence over your mom I think you have economic means to make it without getting an inheritance from your mom but would you have a hard time swallowing the idea that your mom had disinherited you yeah I think so so I think there'd be a lack of you know what did I do wrong no I wasn't I a good son so you when I would my mom treat me this way you want a court then to say publicly so everyone else can see that you were not a son that was disinherited by your mother right yeah I wasn't yeah wasn't that relationship it was a bad actor acting to somehow thwart what really was her intent and so that's why people say it's not about the money because at the end of the day it really isn't in most cases but the money's the measurement stick of that fairness and looking at the idea that mom did include me in her she did want me included so if I get 1/2 the estate at the end of the day then I've rectified this wrong and I can go on forward with my life yeah it's the proxy and the money becomes a proxy but I'd rather get my half and then give it to my sister I would feel better about that because it would be my decision and it would be it would show that my mother still still loved me as a son I'd rather do that than be disinherited and lose my half right the next question is a very common question and the question is my brother has a copy of my dad's trust but he refuses to hand it over what can I do well can I just throw something out here can you stay up on the screen because Kayla Kayla hi everybody Kayla Kayla talks to a lot of people that call in to our firm with various questions and I actually hear her probably 2 or 3 times a day walking through this analysis with somebody so Kayla better than me better than Keith why don't you tell us what you tell people when they can't get a copy of the trust sure so the first thing I usually ask that person is have you asked her brother for it have you requested it and then I usually recommend that they send the trustee which in this situation would be the brother send the trustee a letter requesting a copy of the trust or the will and we have some suggested language you can use in the letter you can say that you're entitled to that information under the probate code in California and if the trustee does not provide that trust or that will to you then you'll be forced to take legal action against the trustee and in our experience that's usually pretty successful and at least getting a copy of the trust from the trustees you just have to ask and it's best to do so in writing so kayla is pointed out that you asked it in YT and you say you have a right to this I think this is probate code 160 61.7 and and Kayla says most of the times that works but let me give you the harder question Keith and that is when that doesn't work you've asked the trust you've asked this individual to provide a copy of the trust we know that under probate code one sixty sixty one sixty 61.7 you have a right an heir or beneficiary to get a copy of the the trust and still the trustee won't give it what do you do you have to file a petition in court and ask the court to order them to hand it over and the reason why it's so important that you follow Kailas instruction in terms of sending out a written request is that under Probate Code section 17 200 you cannot file in court and ask the court to issue an order until you at least give the person 60 days to hand over the requested documents so typically you're gonna do the written request and then you're going to file and you're going to petition for instructions ordering that person to hand it over usually once you file and you serve it you're usually going to get a copy before you have to go to court because most people see the writing on the wall and once they get served with the lawsuit for the petition for instructions they're gonna go see a lawyer and that lawyer is gonna say what are you doing hand it over here so it very rarely goes all the way to court but it can and I've had it happen on rare case we have one case right now where we've asked for a copy the trust they said no we filed the petition they're opposing that and we're gonna show up and my gut tells me that the courts gonna look at 160 61.7 say is this an heir or beneficiary they're gonna see he's not a beneficiary we can say belen fine he's an heir he's a blood heir he's gonna get and the courts gonna say give him a copy of the trial and it's really rare that it has to go that far and I agree with Kayla that most of time when she gives people the suggested language I'd say about what eighty to ninety percent of the time people will call back and say I got it yep it's because the help that we gave them by giving them our links and so it really is a helpful step so at least try that and then if that doesn't work then you're gonna have to go to court and we we can do that so next question came to follow up on that last question we do have an article on our website that has that suggested language that you can use so you can check that out on Alda law comm and our next question is my sibling refuses to let me see my parents what can I do that's a tough one that might be one of the toughest questions we ever get asked because the real answer to that the only way to really force the issue legally is to go to court on a conservatorship and so you can have a power of attorney you can have a health care power you can be successor trustee and yet if one of your siblings has somehow isolated your parent or put them in a care facility and given instructions to the care facility don't let my brother in because he's abusive even though you're not they'll follow it they'll follow it every time and so you have to go now the one thing I would say is that if your goal is to just see your parent and not to control the any finances or do any financial things you could go to court on a conservatorship of the person as opposed to a concern ship of the estate but you do have to go to court and say the reason you need the conservatorship of the person is because the parent lacks capacity or it cannot resist undue influence and you know most parents don't like being told you don't have capacity anymore so do you think there's a difference in terms of how that would be received if I do conservatorship of the person versus consider ship of the estate by the parent no because I think the bad acting sibling is going to turn it whatever way they have to say that the good at concealing is really just trying to get control of you and take away your ability to make decisions I think that you know the comment I would have here is number one document this send letters if the health care facility tells you you can't see your mother asked for that in writing from them and ask for who told you that also send emails letters whatever kind of community X try to keep your square words to zero and ask your sibling you know I would like to see mom because those texts are gonna come back in the future and here's the problem is you've got to have self-control when you're the child that's going through this can you imagine Keith that ending on end I you have a wonderful sister and you have a great relationship with your sister so I'm just using this as an example but could you imagine if you had your parents and your sister kept you from seeing them that is got to be one of the most frustrating scary angry positions you could find yourself in and you tend to say things when you're under that kind of pressure and feeling that that that way about somebody you say things that are highly and appropriate and so having some self-control here not cursing somebody out just making sure you're establishing in documentation whether it's texts or emails or whatever that you're being precluded from seeing your parent now ultimately you can ask the court for they an order to see your parent to have a visiting schedule and if you think it's that important for you to have your parent and see them then that's the avenue you're gonna have to take but I promise you the bad acting sibling is gonna take any action you take like that turn it against you until your parent who's probably confused isn't quite right cognitively speaking and try to turn them against you but that's why the documentation is so important so document everything that's happening see a proof of it try to look reasonable in your communications so that you don't look like crazy swearing demanding right unreasonable person and and third accept the fact that you may not be able to accomplish your goal right because you may not be able to see your parent and that might just be the way it is and it is unfortunate because conservatorship is really the only direction that you can take legally and it's so hard to number one get conservatorship and it's so hard to protect yourself once you file because yeah the your parents gonna be told by the bad sibling that you're a bad person right it's terrible all right what's our next question Kayla here's another question from Facebook how do I have a sibling removed as trustee if they're not following the terms of the trust well and we get this question a lot and I will tell you that removing a trustee is quite difficult in California it's quite difficult to the United States there's a high burden that you're gonna have to meet however we found that courts are willing to suspend trustees which is different than removal pending the determination of a trial on whether the trustee should be removed if that you can show some type of financial issue if you can show that there was two hundred thousand dollars in a trust account and now that two hundred thousand dollars is missing we found that we can get courts to move but if you can't show something nefarious like that and you have to do some discovery to be able to show that you can't show something nefarious like that I found judges to be reluctant to remove or suspend trustees what's been your experience yeah I agree I mean removal is tough and you have to remember that I think beneficiaries viewed this as it's my money and if I want to remove the trustee like why can't I just do that and the answer is because it's not your money yet it's your parents money or whoever created the trust and that person put somebody in charge of that money and the court presumes that that person was put in charge for a reason and that they're gonna remain in charge unless they absolutely must be removed and so that's the problem that you have with it is that yes you're getting a gift under a trust but it's a conditional gift and the condition is this trustee is is there until you can remove them now some trusts have removal provisions I love those so then the trustee can just exercise some sort of removal most trusts don't and so you're gonna be stuck with this trustee yeah I answer specifically to that question what I would say is you know filed the lawsuit to remove them and ask for suspension in that lawsuit you're not gonna get it at the first hearing but get a deposition as soon as possible get some subpoenas out to bank accounts and the minute you can bring something to the court that shows that there's been some bad things happening with the finances there's a good chance it's not a great chance but a good chance that the court will say you know what we're gonna take a timeout here we're gonna suspend this person we're not removing them yet but we're gonna suspend them pending the outcome of this case having baked statements substantially increases your chances and the best case I ever had was where a trust that had three properties and we did some subpoenas and we found out that the mortgages on all three properties had gone unpaid for four months and yet these properties generated enough income that was like three times what the monthly mortgage payments were so there clearly should have been plenty of cash to pay the mortgages and yet they hadn't been paid for four months right something's wrong I mean you don't have to be a rocket science to see something's not right here right and we took that to the court and the judge suspended that trustee immediately so those those are the easiest cases rather you have the evidence or the proof of something's really wrong here that's right and keep in mind with trustee removal this person that you're trying to remove is entitled to an evidentiary hearing and what is an evidentiary hearing it's a full-blown trial right and that is that going to happen anytime soon in our court system no it's going to take a while that's what suspension is for is that it's it's suspending the trustee pending trial so removal is not going to happen right away it's gonna take what 18 to 24 months to get a removal trial in most courts right on average sometimes you can get them sooner but on average 18 months you're doing pretty good suspension is supposed to remove that trustee temporarily until trial and most judges aren't going to do that they're just not going to shoot from the hip as you like to say right prior to trial one last comment is is if if if that trustee is not following the trusts terms which it sounds like they're not if you do hire a lawyer and then the trustee and kind hires another lawyer and both lawyers that are posing each other know what they're doing in this area does that iron these things out in most cases it can yeah because a lot of times especially if a trustee has done some things inappropriately and so the trustee is doing some wrong things and then once the lawsuit starts they go and hire a lawyer that lawyer is going to say look you need to get if you can step aside and voluntarily resign in exchange for a release from some of these things that probably weren't quite right that you did it would be in your best interest to do that and a lot of times that's what happens is rather than face the music they'd rather just voluntarily resign and that's good for the beneficiary too because it gets the bad trustee out of the way a better trustee can come into place and now things can be properly managed and invested okay our next question is a pretty heartbreaking one and the situation is my sibling refused to let me see my parent when they were dying and then they waited weeks or even months to tell me that they passed away can I sue my sibling for that that is a devastating situation and it happens fairly often you know it's it's sad because we hear that you know I mean I wouldn't say a lot but more than I would like and so what do you do in that situation can you get damages against a sibling for having done that because it seems awfully malicious technically you cannot I mean I suppose if you had some type of emotional distress which I have not seen that lawsuit filed you could potentially sue for your emotional distress injuries which an interesting concept to at least evaluate under the right set of facts if you come across them but I do think these type of facts help us in these cases as we're developing our case so let's say that a trust contest comes out of this and we're trying to invalidate a trust amendment but that was done three weeks before the mom died and then you have the the bad acting a child here not even informing the other sibling of mom's death until well after mom's been buried you can't even go to the funeral can't go to the ceremony and I agree with you Keith these are awful this is something that is very hard to live with for that sibling that missed out on this that everyone should be given that opportunity to go to the funeral and say their last goodbyes and but what we found is that in deposition when you're taking the bad acting siblings deposition you can see that they realized this was a huge mistake on their part it was it was an error in judgment big time because this kind of fact really hurts yeah so it really builds a trust contest side of the case but you're not gonna get damages for that particular act necessarily and I don't think the courts gonna say you get damages for that but the court is probably to be more inclined to give us the case because of the despicable act that took place what we call the persuasive part of the argument it may not be legally meaningful but it's persuasively very very meaningful right and and by the way that is that's that we do see and I agree with you and we've mentioned it it it's hard to even imagine that that happens yeah but it does that's terrible that's all we have for today for questions very good well thank you I appreciate all your help and I want to thank everybody for joining us on the stand fight win live stream we also had Benicia our marketing expert helping out on looking at the Facebook questions and being able to tee those up for Kayla any last words Stuart no we're looking forward to seeing you next week and we'll be back trying to hammer out some of these tougher issues again next time sounds good thanks for joining.