Trusts Legal Questions

If there's a trust, your sister is the successor trustee, not the executor. She should not be living in the home for free, unless she is given the home in the trust. If the trust doesn't give her the home, she should probably be paying rent, and working to get the house on the market as quickly as possible. You can send her a letter requesting an accounting, and asking when she will put the house up for sale. If that doesn't produce results, you probably need to hire an attorney.... Read More

If you don't receive your distribution by mid-January, you should contact her again. It is a lot of work for a family member trustee to manage the estate, arrange sale of assets, and figure out what future expenses there might be, like taxes. Hopefully she'll come through now that the holidays are over. Even though you could have an attorney contact her, there are repercussions for doing that. You might get your money a little sooner, while damaging the relationship beyond repair.... Read More

It's difficult to answer without seeing all of the documents, but if there is both a probate case and a trust involved, legally speaking the trust may not have the assets until the probate case is concluded. If the trust doesn't have the assets yet, the trustee can't follow the instruction to make a payment. It might be helpful to talk with a lawyer to get some more information on how trusts and probate works.... Read More

Typically, you must file a petition in Probate Court. Before filing, you will want to take a look at the trust document to see if there is any removal provision outside of court. Assuming that you cannot remove outside of court you will want to go through Probate Court with your petition including the reasons for removing the trustee in accordance with California Probate Code Section 15642.... Read More

Dear Jayne, A revocable trust would allow you to modify or amend the trust as the trustee of the revocable trust. An irrevocable trust is designed to not allow for any changes or amendments without court intervention. If your goal is to be able to change the trust I would have an attorney create a revocable trust which would allow your kids as beneficiaries to receive from your assets after a designated time in accordance with your wishes. Sincerely, Amanda... Read More

Ms. Paddock, Are you certain that the trust is irrevocable. That would mean, generally speaking, the trust you are referring to was not created by your father. If in fact this is a revocable trust which is a common estate planning tool, he can change it anytime he wants to and he can disinherit you if he wants to and it is not related to your sister’s death. If the trust is truly irrevocable, he would be able to change the terms of the trust if he had been given a special or limited power of appointment to change the terms of the trust usually to take effect after he dies.   Good luck. ... Read More

It appears that you already have a revocable trust.   If you added the house to the trust, you would avoid probate upon the death of the second to die.   You will probably need to do a simple filing with your local real estate tax assessor in order to maintain the homestead exemption, if you do transfer the property.   To transfer the property, a deed will have to be signed and recorded.   Whether or not you want to do this will probably depend in part upon your ages and your health.  As it is now, there's no probate on the death of the first to die, only the second.    ... Read More

Without seeing the wording of the trust, and being able to understand why the "withdrawal agreement" is needed, I don't think any attorney could confidently answer this question. It was probably a mistake for your mother to terminate her relationship with her estate planning attorney, without replacing that attorney with another one, until all actions needed to amend her trust were completed.... Read More

If your brother's name was on the account, it is legally his. I'm confused as to what you mean "we didn't have time to change it over." After your father's death, there were no options. Even during your father's life, if your brother's name was actually on the account (as opposed to being a beneficiary at your father's death), your father couldn't have changed the account without your brother's agreement. It is possible that your father intended your brother to have that account, and you to have everything else.... Read More

To answer this question, there are many more facts that I would need to know in order to answer your question more throughly. Your children might want to consider hiring an attorney to seek an accounting of your sister as trustee as to where the money that was placed in the trust for the upkeep of the property has gone.  She money left in the trust, ie. $10,000, belongs to your children and not the trustee so she can not offer to "buy"  the house for the money left in the trust because this money already belongs to them.... Read More

You can do anything you want with your property. I would recommend, though, that if you want to disinherit the beneficiary who has already stolen from you, that you have your trust amended to do that.  Giving your house to the other beneficiary now subjects your home to that beneficiary's creditors, and gives them your basis in the house. What that means is that if they sell the home, they will have to pay a lot of capital gains taxes. Besides that, if the beneficiary is not your child, the property taxes will go up upon the transfer.... Read More

If your creditors are just potential suits for liability, then insurance is good enough.  You can add coverage for very little.  The trust would limit your flexibility, and have other tax consequences.  If you had significant real creditors, like loans, etc., then a trust might be a good idea.  There are special trust types for your home, like a QPRT. ... Read More

Would be silly to sue over this.  These people have an endless array of issues to resolve in their paperwork.  Whenever you are dealing with issues like this it is important to send all information, certified return receipt requested, so that you have a date and proof that they have received what you send.  You should always save a copy of what you send and staple the green card to it when you get it back.  Keep a diary of all contacts you have with the company and the full names of the people you talk to. Undertand that they can lose what you send.  Be polite.  Ask for them to resend what you do not get   Calendar to follow up at least every two weeks.  You will get your benefit and not have to pay a lawyer which for issues like this is a waste of money.  Good luck to you.... Read More