Where’s the Money? How Can I Figure Out Where All the Trust Money Went?

[Music] Hi this is Stuart Albertson with Albertson in Davidson and I want to talk to you about how do we find assets in a trust or will contest case and this is a problem this is something that we have a hard time explaining to clients at times because the clients come to us and they say I know mom and dad had gold bars silver bars cash in a safe I know that there's some personal property items that are out there that mom had and my brother's taken them and sold them to a pawn shop how do we prove that how did we get the assets back and there's some good news and some bad news here the the good news is if a asset has a title to it such as a bank account that has a title a car has a title a house generally has a title retirement accounts have titles these are generally larger assets in a person's estate we can generally find those assets out there by serving subpoenas on parties that have those documents so that we can look at them and determine what the value of those assets were on the date of death maybe even prior to the date of death and then of course what they're worth today and we can ask whoever was in control of those assets after someone passed away what have they done with those assets have they spent them on themselves or have they save them for the rightful beneficiaries of the trust or the will so that is one way that we find assets in these cases sometimes I feel like clients look at us and say you're the lawyer you're the expert can't you just go out there and find these assets aren't these assets just available for you as a specialist in this arena to go and find and what I tell clients is I wish that were the case I wish I had a magic wand that I could wave and I could find all of the assets that have disappeared or gone missing that once belonged to your mom or your dad prior to their passing there's going to be some assets that you're just not going to be able to find in these cases rarely will you find someone who's stolen assets rarely what you have them come to a deposition and they admit that they stole the assets if even if they get to the point where they say yes they're worth some cash and a safe of $200,000 they're gonna tell you that mom or dad gifted that cash to them and then that will be the new argument whether it was a gift whether it was a loan whether they took it without permission that will be an issue to decide the time of trial but in most cases if $200,000 cash is missing chances of finding it are not going to be great in these cases I wish that was not be a state of affairs for trust in well cases in California but ultimately if we have titled assets we can find them if we have untitled assets it can be a problem and the sooner people understand that come to grips with that it's much easier for us to move forward in the case. [Music] [Applause] [Music]