Fees or Famine: How Much Should a Trustee be Paid?

[Music] Hi this is Stuart Albertson with Albertan and Davidson I want to talk to you about trustees fees it's an issue that comes up quite often and beneficiaries are concerned and want to know how much did a trustee be paid when should they be paid should they be paid at all and those are all very good questions the first question has to be should a trustee be paid if a trustee is not following the terms of the trust if the trustee refuses to communicate with you if the trustee uses the trust assets as if there's our own assets and not your assets that they're taking care of if the trustee refuses to make distributions to you well maybe we have a trustee that doesn't deserve much of a trustees for you maybe not any trustees fees so that's the first question second question let's say that we do have a trustee this deserving of being paid are they a family member or is it a bank a private fiduciary quality is a professional fiduciary and there's a little distinction there the private professional fiduciaries are gonna get a little bit more than a family member who's being a trustee so if it's a family member who's a trustee generally you're looking at anywhere between $30 an hour and $80 an hour just depending on what county you're in the complexity of the trust what is the background of the trustee if the trustee is a certified public accountant and they're doing a bunch of accounting functions for the trust the court may grant them a little bit more for fees but what we do see that's wrong in our opinion is a family member who's a trustee paying themselves as if they're a private fiduciary a private professional fiduciary private professional fiduciaries generally take about 1% of the trust estate per year for their trustees fees and most courts will approve that request by that professional trustee but that doesn't mean your family member who's a trustee also gets to take 1% of the trust estate and we see many times family members who are trustees who are non professionals trying to take 1% in trustees fees that is inappropriate we think that most probate courts are going to require the trustee in that case to take an hourly fee somewhere between 30 bucks an hour and 80 bucks an hour maybe a hundred bucks an hour if you really find somebody that's qualified and they're gonna have to line-item and keep a journal and keep track of all the hours that they worked on the trust and in what capacity they were working in the trusts were they working for your benefit as a trust beneficiary or were they working to protect themselves from liability down the road those are two different analyses one would be appropriate for trustees fees the other would not. [Music] [Applause] [Music]