How do you read a Private Trust statement (Canadian bank)?

January 19, 2023 4:46 PM

My senile father's estate is in a managed wealth trust in Canada because my remaining brother and I live in the U.S. and can't legally manage his estate. I get statements but I have no accounting background and while I can look at the big number I can't really make heads or tails of anything else. Are there any resources I can look out to better understand this?
posted by srboisvert to Work & Money (5 answers total)

There are two types of management going on, perhaps by the same people, perhaps not. One is management of the trust e. g. distributing money for your father's benefit. The other is managing the money including such menial tasks as receiving and depositing dividend checks. If the money is invested in securities, someone is making buy/sell decisions. Possibly the assets are in annuities which are, a bit different.

I see no reason why these people would not meet with you to explain what they do and why. In particular, any financial institution that sends you a statement should be willing to meet with you to give you any help you need to understand it.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:50 PM on January 19, 2023 [2 favorites]

+1 ask to speak to someone at the bank. Also, if they are sending you statements, you may have some kind of role/status in the way they administer the trust. I.e., you may have a legal right to ask questions/be informed.
posted by Mid at 7:16 PM on January 19, 2023

Response by poster: I'm in a different country and I have no real legal right to even see the financial statements from the trust, I just get them as a courtesy so I don't really want to be too demanding. I just assumed there would be something somewhere that explained the basics of the structure of the reporting of a financial trust. It's not really a complicated trust other than waiting for two estates in Canada to be clear probate so they can be added to it.
posted by srboisvert at 6:38 PM on January 20, 2023

At heart, I would expect the report to be similar to any other account:

Opening balance
+ income (if any)
- outgo (if any)
Closing balance

In addition to that, you might get breakdowns common to any investment account. How much is cash, how much is securities, buys and sells of securities, comparisons to earlier times (last month, last year, start of year). Possibly there is info related to tax liabilities.
posted by SemiSalt at 5:07 AM on January 21, 2023

I don't know what the statement looks like but this is a simple introduction to what you might see on a statement. Here is longer one that includes a FAQ. Maybe see how well that matches to the statement that you have and then you ask some more questions?
posted by metahawk at 8:06 PM on January 21, 2023