Trustee Solutions – Disbursements: What You Can and Can’t Pay for with Trust Money

[Music] So you find yourself as a trustee of a trust and you have to make expenditures out of that trust and the question is what are appropriate expenditures well let's first talk about what your basic and primary job is as a trustee and that is as trustee you're going to collect all the assets of the trust you're going to pay off all of the liabilities of the trust and then you're going to distribute what's left over to the beneficiaries and that can take anywhere from a year to three years to complete it's a long process it's called a trust administration well during the trust administration you're gonna make payments out to creditors of the trust or to people that are owed money from the decedent's past such as credit card companies or just the ongoing CPA costs for the tax returns for the trust and so forth those type of trust disbursements are appropriate and you as the trustee are allowed to pay those out of trust funds the trustee should not make take their trustees fee right away and they also should not use the trust assets as their own bank account so if you were going to the grocery store as a trustee and you forgot all of your checking accounts except the trust checking account you can't even buy that $3.00 gallon of melech that's how much melt cost now you can't do that you that is a breach of trust and so don't take trust assets and spend them on yourself they're only to be spent for trust liabilities albertson and Davidson is here to help you fight for your inheritance check out Alda law calm for our complete library of helpful legal videos and articles from your favorite California trusts and we'll litigation law firm Albertson and Davidson LLP.