Arizona trust in need of a trustee
October 27, 2011 11:54 AM Subscribe
I am one of five beneficiaries of a trust in Arizona. The successor trustee named in the document was purchased by another company, who has declined to act as trustee. The estate is too small for most corporate trust departments, so we're looking for a private professional fiduciary in the Phoenix area. YANML...just looking for recommendations.
A family member, who's also a CPA, has proposed himself as trustee, but I'd like to propose an alternate. Does anyone have experience or recommendations in the Phoenix area? More details available if needed.
Thanks!
A family member, who's also a CPA, has proposed himself as trustee, but I'd like to propose an alternate. Does anyone have experience or recommendations in the Phoenix area? More details available if needed.
Thanks!
I would NOT go with a family volunteer. Currently repping a client who did that. Long, nasty, family-killing litigation.
Talk to a trust and estates lawyer. How big is the corpus?
posted by Ironmouth at 2:15 PM on October 27, 2011 [1 favorite]
Talk to a trust and estates lawyer. How big is the corpus?
posted by Ironmouth at 2:15 PM on October 27, 2011 [1 favorite]
If it's a family trust and everyone is of age, courts will look often look favorably at family settlement agreements that terminate and dissolve the trust. Especially where the corpus of the trust isn't big enough to justify its continued existence. This can hold true even where the trust document fixes a termination date/event that has not yet occurred.
IANYL. Ask yours.
posted by webhund at 6:57 PM on October 27, 2011
IANYL. Ask yours.
posted by webhund at 6:57 PM on October 27, 2011
Response by poster: Just thought I'd follow up here in case it's helpful to anyone else...
I met with an estate attorney here in California who handled a friend's estate. Her first recommendation was to suggest a co-trustee from the family. In our case though, that won't work. Corporate trustees normally have a minimum corpus threshold, which ours doesn't meet, so the third option she suggested was to locate a private professional fiduciary. Googling turned up the Arizona Fiduciaries Association, through which we've identified some candidates, and we're reviewing them now.
posted by Gusaroo at 6:37 PM on November 1, 2011
I met with an estate attorney here in California who handled a friend's estate. Her first recommendation was to suggest a co-trustee from the family. In our case though, that won't work. Corporate trustees normally have a minimum corpus threshold, which ours doesn't meet, so the third option she suggested was to locate a private professional fiduciary. Googling turned up the Arizona Fiduciaries Association, through which we've identified some candidates, and we're reviewing them now.
posted by Gusaroo at 6:37 PM on November 1, 2011
Response by poster: Another follow-up and word of advice to anyone writing a trust, or a beneficiary to a trust. My family still does not have a trustee, and it's clear to me that the family CPA never intended to accept anyone other than himself as trustee. So we go to petition the court for a third-party trustee.
My advice: I'm going with Ironmouth all the way on this...NEVER name a family member as trustee, and pay attention to how you define the criteria for successor trustees, should the first one fail to serve.
The only silver lining I can think of in my situation is that we didn't blindly agree to the family member to begin with.
I don't wish this experience on anyone.
posted by Gusaroo at 12:34 PM on November 5, 2011
My advice: I'm going with Ironmouth all the way on this...NEVER name a family member as trustee, and pay attention to how you define the criteria for successor trustees, should the first one fail to serve.
The only silver lining I can think of in my situation is that we didn't blindly agree to the family member to begin with.
I don't wish this experience on anyone.
posted by Gusaroo at 12:34 PM on November 5, 2011
This thread is closed to new comments.
posted by megatherium at 1:48 PM on October 27, 2011