Party’s Over! Can a California Beneficiary be Removed from Their Trust?

[Music] Others Keith Davidson from Albertson and Davidson in this video we're discussing whether a beneficiary can be removed from an irrevocable trust an irrevocable trust is a trust that can't be changed it can't be amended it can't be terminated so typically if your parents create a trust and they pass away the trust then becomes irrevocable but there's also irrevocable trust that your parents may have created while they were still alive such as children's trusts or other type of grantor trusts if you are a beneficiary of an irrevocable trust generally speaking you cannot be removed as a beneficiary because the trust cannot be changed it cannot be terminated nobody typically can come along and take away your status as a trust beneficiary there are a few exceptions however so there are some trusts that do allow for amendment by a special trustee but that typically would not allow or include the power to remove a beneficiary so you have to read your trust document and see the other exception is what we call powers of appointment sometimes a trust will grant somebody let's say the husband might grant the wife the power to appoint the assets and what that means is the wife has the right to appoint the assets to somebody other than you so you might be the beneficiary but if somebody exercises their powerful pointment they could instead appoint the assets to your brother your sister a charity or whatever the power of appointment allows so one of the things you should do is take a close look at your trust document to see what power of appointment rights there are if there are any and who has the right to exercise that power of appointment but if you don't have a power of appointment you don't have a special trustee then chances are your status of the trust beneficiary cannot change. [Music] [Applause] [Music]