Trust Matter
Trustees
Beneficiaries
Counseling for Trustees
The job of a trustee often requires making difficult decisions, such as selling trust property against beneficiaries’ wishes or investing trust assets.
A trust attorney provides essential guidance, ensuring trustees fulfill their duties correctly and in compliance with the law. In some cases, attorneys can even handle certain tasks on the trustee’s behalf.
Having experienced legal support is the best way for successor trustees to protect themselves, as mistakes, negligence, or inaction that causes financial harm to a trust can lead to personal liability, removal, or even surcharges.
This is why even seasoned trustees often work with attorneys to navigate these responsibilities.
Beneficiaries should remember that a trustee’s attorney represents only the trustee, not them.
To protect their own interests, beneficiaries may wish to hire a trust lawyer to oversee the trustee’s actions and ensure compliance with both the law and the trust’s terms.
Improper actions by a trustee can put beneficiaries’ inheritances at risk. A trust attorney can help beneficiaries monitor trust administration and safeguard their rights throughout the process.
Trust Accounting
Trustees have a duty to preserve and manage trust assets, maintaining thorough records of all assets entering and leaving the trust. Additionally, they are required to provide beneficiaries with a formal accounting at least once a year.
To ensure compliance and prevent disputes, trustees can benefit from hiring a trust attorney to prepare code-compliant accountings on their behalf and defend their accountings if challenged.
A trust attorney can also help streamline the accounting process and guide trustees in meeting all legal obligations.
Beneficiaries have the right to request informal accountings at any time if they suspect fiduciary misconduct or improper management of trust assets.
A trust attorney can help beneficiaries analyze accountings for accuracy, identify red flags, challenge inadequate or suspicious accountings, compel accountings, and dispute questionable financial decisions made by trustees.
By doing so, beneficiaries can ensure that the trustee is fulfilling their fiduciary duties and that their inheritances are protected.
Property Management
Trustees may face disputes over assets like real estate with beneficiaries, heirs, third parties, or even the decedent’s probate estate.
For example, a probate estate may have wrongfully claimed property after the settlor’s death that actually belongs in their trust.
A trust attorney can help trustees navigate such property disputes, ensuring decisions align with the trust’s terms, comply with California law, and minimize the risk of liability.
Attorneys can also help trustees evaluate the legality and potential consequences of selling trust property, as well as guide them through legal tools such as 850 Petitions or partition actions to resolve disputes over property ownership or management.
Beneficiaries can benefit from a trust attorney when property disputes arise over trust assets.
Common issues include disagreements about selling or keeping real estate, conflicts over property that was not properly transferred into the trust, and suspicions of financial abuse of the settlor by a third party.
An attorney can help beneficiaries protect their interests and seek resolution through legal tools such as partition actions or petitions to clarify ownership.
Trust Disputes
A trust lawyer can help clarify a trustee’s role — or whether they should involve themselves at all — in a trust dispute. Trustees may also require help determining the best way to defend a trust.
Whether a trustee needs to navigate disputes involving ambiguous trust language, challenges to the validity of the trust, or revocations of the document, a California trust attorney can assist.
Beneficiaries may encounter disputes when there are issues with the trust instrument, including trust contests and ambiguous terms.
A trust attorney can assist beneficiaries in challenging suspicious actions, asserting their rights, and ensuring the trust is administered fairly.
Specific situations that may give rise to trust contests include allegations that the trust creator lacked capacity, was subject to undue influence or fraud, failed to follow proper procedures for revocation, or made gifts to disqualified individuals.
Trustee Misconduct
A trustee who faces allegations of misconduct or mismanagement may need guidance on how to respond and protect themselves.
A trust attorney can help trustees understand their responsibilities, evaluate claims of financial harm, and develop a defense if a petition to remove or surcharge them is filed.
Beneficiaries who believe a trustee has acted improperly or caused financial harm to a trust can petition the court to remove and surcharge the trustee.
A trust attorney can guide beneficiaries through this process, evaluating whether the trustee has caused losses, engaged in misconduct, acted negligently or incompetently, created conflicts of interest or threatened to withhold distributions.
With professional legal support, beneficiaries can protect their inheritance, hold trustees accountable, and ensure proper administration of the trust.
Enforcement of Inheritance Rights
Trustees may need guidance when dealing with potential claims from surviving spouses, children, or unmarried partners who are not explicitly named in the trust, but nevertheless may be entitled to trust assets.
A trust attorney can help trustees evaluate whether someone qualifies as an omitted spouse or child under California law, or in determining whether an unmarried cohabitant has a legitimate claim to trust assets and advise on how to handle such claims.
Surviving spouses, children, or long-term unmarried partners who have been unintentionally omitted from a decedent’s trust may have legal rights to an inheritance.
In California, surviving spouses are often entitled to a share of community property and a share of the settlor’s separate property, while omitted children may be entitled to a share of the settlor’s separate property.
Unmarried partners may need to assert their rights through a creditor’s claim.
