Probate is slow but at least it's transparent.

July 31, 2007 4:56 PM

Trusts and Estates Question: How can you find out whether someone had money in a trust and who the beneficiaries are? Help me understand my grandparent's wishes.

My grandmother recently passed on. She had three sons, A, B, and C. My father, B, was estranged from his father and I did not meet my grandmother until after her husband died, about ten years ago. We became fairly close after that and after my father died during my senior year of college (leaving me nothing) she paid for my law school tuition. I believe that she also provided money for college for A's three daughters. C has no children but has required financial support throughout his life.

My grandmother boasted that she was going to dodge the probate process because all her assets were in trusts. She set up an educational trust for the money for my tuition and paid it out of that. After I graduated, she noted that there was still some money left in my trust. Two years later, she is gone. A and his family found a bunch of financial documents because they were the first ones to go through her house.

I was told by A that she had appointed Accountant 1, a third party, as trustee/executor. I called Accountant 1 to provide him with my contact information and was told a variety of weird things:

- After reading a partial copy of the trust agreement, he was turning over the trustee position to A because that was possible with a majority vote of the beneficiaries, which seems to undermine the whole purpose of appointing an outside person (my great-aunt said my grandmother had stated she'd done this specifically to avoid family tension);
- The only beneficiaries are A and his children D, E, and F (which directly contradicts A's previous statement that C would be provided with a monthly income pursuant to the trust);
- There might be several other trusts but he had no idea how many. He offered the name of Accountant 2.

(Accountant 1 was actually set to transfer his responsibilities as trustee without even looking at any documentation because he "would only need to be involved if the will was complicated, and didn't think it was." Only after I called him twice did he review an incomplete copy of the trust agreement and decide that yes, he could shift the burden elsewhere.)

I contacted Accountant 2, who told me that my educational trust had been "depleted" but couldn't/wouldn't tell me whether there were other trusts for which I was the beneficiary. (I also don't know how she could know that off the top of her head.) As an added bonus, the second-in-line trustee for that educational trust is my grandmother's brother, not me, although he has said that he will provide me with any money still in the trust immediately.

Nobody will tell me anything or provide me with any copies of the relevant trust documents ("we can't just give those out to anybody"), Accountant 1 has only seen a partial copy of a single trust agreement, and everyone seems to be relying on A's word that he and his children are the only beneficiaries. It's entirely possible that my grandmother decided that she had done enough for me, since I had only known her for ten years and A and his kids have been around the entire time, but I'd prefer to get that from some objective source and not from off-the-cuff responses to phone calls and incomplete documents of which only A knows the provenance. I have asked A for a copy of the documents but he has not responded.

So: How can I find out what's going on? Can I get some kind of accounting for any/all of these trusts? All relevant action is in Texas, although I am not. I know the knee-jerk answer is "lawyer up," but I am a lawyer and would like to get some idea of whether I can find out the information I want without spending a bunch on a trusts and estates guy (my three-credit class is not cutting it here). If you have administered or established a similar estate plan, I'd be interested in whatever information you could provide as well.

posted by amber_dale to Law & Government (8 answers total)

The whole point of a trust is to allow the grantor to create it and allow its provisions to govern the distributions without having to tell the world, as is the case with a will. This means that T, a hypothetical trustee, does not have to tell anyone other than the beneficiaries of the trust what its terms are and what they are entitled to.

The following applies in my state, and probably would apply in most. A person who believes that he is a beneficiary could ask the probate court in his jurisdiction for relief in the form of a review by the court to ensure that what T says as to both items (who benefits and what they get) is accurate. Someone who is an interested relative but has no reason to believe that he is a beneficiary would probably not be entitled to that much.

There is not much in the way of guidance from the court rules or cases on the issue of multiple trusts, and the probate judge would probably just feel his way through that issue. Many trust documents provide that previous trust documents are revoked, but not all do.

The usual cautionary exhortations apply. I don't need to spell them out, do I?

Good luck.
posted by megatherium at 5:26 PM on July 31, 2007

Ahem.

All together now?

Lawyer lawyer lawyer lawyer.

Specifically, one who specializes in trusts and estates.
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 5:57 PM on July 31, 2007

The reason that "consult a lawyer" is useful advice here is that T&E law is profoundly, profoundly local. Even in states that have substantially adopted the UPC and UTC and other uniform acts, there's enormous variation in actual probate procedures. This isn't an area like, oh, say, First Amendment law or copyright, where legal knowledge is pretty much the same from Maine to Montana. In T&E, your mileage will vary greatly from place to place.
posted by grimmelm at 7:44 PM on July 31, 2007

Response by poster: For the benefit of anyone who might be in a similar situation: My boyfriend, also a MeFite, suggested checking whether trust documents are filed with the county clerk's office. There are several potentially relevant filings there, and this might yield documents that I could take to be reviewed by counsel, should I retain a trusts and estates lawyer.

That is a useful answer.
posted by amber_dale at 7:54 PM on July 31, 2007

Because it's the right answer.

Indeed. Probate law is so damn complicated. I only know this second-hand, but you're an attorney, amber_dale, so you ought to know that this is not a question AskMe can even begin to answer for you.
posted by oaf at 8:00 PM on July 31, 2007

Response by poster: I was hoping that someone who had been the beneficiary of a trust might be able to say "yes, I was able to get an accounting," or could suggest that documents might be on file somewhere; megatherium's information about potential relief from a probate court was also good to get. Even an opinion on whether this sort of confusion is common with estates or whether it indicates something fishy would be great (all you need for that is experience with dead people). You would not have to be a lawyer to shed light on some of these circumstances.

I just had the rug pulled out from under me and I wanted to know if people with any relevant knowledge could share their experiences. I don't know why it's necessary to be insulting.
posted by amber_dale at 8:28 PM on July 31, 2007

I wasn't being insulting. As a lawyer, you should know that when dealing with even marginally complex legal issues, the only responsible advice is 'consult competent legal counsel.'
posted by dirtynumbangelboy at 9:50 PM on July 31, 2007

Sorry to hear your grandmother passed. My dad is a trusts & estates lawyer, so I called and asked him.*

megatherium's answer was spot on. There's one additional point when you know you are a beneficiary.

Generally, the beneficiary of a trust has a right to an accounting from the trustee. In theory, you should be able to get that accounting simply by asking. That would only apply to the one educational trust that you know you were a beneficiary of. If the trustee does not give you the accounting, or for other trusts where you suspect that you may be a beneficiary but don't know for sure, the only way to get a full accounting is to petition the probate court.

Since it sounds like Accountant 1 wasn't very forthcoming, probate court is the only way to be sure whether or not your grams left you anything in trust.

* I had to promise him I'd put a disclaimer -- he doesn't do a lot of giving legal advice over the internet. So.... He's not your lawyer. And he doesn't practice in Texas. I am a lawyer, but not yours. And I don't know jack about trusts, estates, or Texas law.
posted by jewishbuddha at 10:37 PM on July 31, 2007