sister, cotrustee, breaching

[mohaabtsh40]

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? CO
The case is in colorado, i live in california.
Mom passed over a year ago Jan 9th 2015. There was a will AND a living trust leaving me and my 2 sisters all cotrustees,
one sister took it to9 court and ended up getting a pay off (whole other story), but it caused a public administrator to gain control of the assets.
When she gave them back there was 2 checks. Me and my remaining sister are now the co trustees, (sinse sept 6th, 2015).

We had talked about many things but she led me to believe she was going to get a realtor. She gave me excuses after excuses all the time. By the way she STILL living in the house, driving the car and she took the checks and opened a new trust and only included her name, not mine. I been asking for a transaction and balance statement from day one. There were items my folks wanted me to have, i havent received anything. Aside from sister needed money to move so i agreed to her withdraws as long as she sent me the same amount of money and only meant for it to get her to move the first time, she has needed several now and i bet im going to have a tax issue over it. But she still hasnt moved and i suspect she let her boyfriend move in.

Finally she gets it, (house) listed with my approval over a year after mom passed. Partly due to the first sister and courts... anyway i havent got the important documents i asked for, she knows nothing of filing tax report for the trust and has not sent those documents from the bank, or even the bank info for me...absolutely nothing i have been asking for. NOTHING except those few withdrawss and now she says she doesnt owe money the trust says she does and i go to try and make her pay that then she will charge the trust for her work that she did at the beginning, she really hasnt done anything sinse the funeral, and she been using the car this whole time and my biggest fear now is that she wont be out by the time a buyer is ready to move in, then the deal goes south and we still have to pay realtor and face a possible suit with buyer because she wont move her lil booty, plus she has control and possession of EVERYTHING in the trust. im out of state. The other issue here is between paying off the other sister and now all these mortgage payments and expenses i cannot afford another drag through the courts or the high cost of a public administrator. Also all the personal stuff in the house still there and i asked for an inventory that i have not got. What can i do, please help?

 

[tranquility]

You convince her to comply or you go for another drag through the courts. There are no magic words that can change things.

Some things certainly seem like a breach of fiduciary duty. However, things you "fear" are not. And, unless the trust and will demand the trustee or executor are not to be paid, she may have a claim for her effort.

 

[OHRoadwarrior]

These are things you allowed to go on. If you do not take proactive steps, you will likely find she spends more than he part of the inheritance by the time you get to an accounting.

 

[Dandy Don]

If your requests for information have been just verbal, that may be a mistake. A Colorado trust attorney can tell you whether your requests for information from the trustee must be in writing, not just verbal.

You need to have a consultation with a Colorado trust attorney to figure out what your options are (first consultation is usually free or very affordable). Your attorney can advise you about what can be immediately done to prevent further damage to this estate--probably ask for an injunction to be issued and/or threaten her with breach of fiduciary charges if she doesn't resign. You also need to ask the attorney if it is possible for an executor's/trustee's bond to be purchased (paid for by the trust) for this trust to protect against misappropriation of funds/incorrect distributions from this trustee. She obviously doesn't know what she is doing and if the other co-trustees are not financially savvy, it may be best if the co-trustees ask a professional trustee/attorney to manage this trust if it is inconvenient for the co-trustees to do it.

 

[mohaabtsh40]

These are things you allowed to go on. If you do not take proactive steps, you will likely find she spends more than he part of the inheritance by the time you get to an accounting.

i am here asking you what those steps are.

If your requests for information have been just verbal, that may be a mistake. A Colorado trust attorney can tell you whether your requests for information from the trustee must be in writing, not just verbal.

You need to have a consultation with a Colorado trust attorney to figure out what your options are (first consultation is usually free or very affordable). Your attorney can advise you about what can be immediately done to prevent further damage to this estate--probably ask for an injunction to be issued and/or threaten her with breach of fiduciary charges if she doesn't resign. You also need to ask the attorney if it is possible for an executor's/trustee's bond to be purchased (paid for by the trust) for this trust to protect against misappropriation of funds/incorrect distributions from this trustee. She obviously doesn't know what she is doing and if the other co-trustees are not financially savvy, it may be best if the co-trustees ask a professional trustee/attorney to manage this trust if it is inconvenient for the co-trustees to do it.

That is what the first sister did and after 8 months, the judge ordered mediation which is what should have happened in the first place. Finally through that, we paid her off. That was a huge mess. The result was all bad.

The 2nd sister led me to believe she was moving, and having realtors come through, but she always has an excuse, just like the first sister thought/feared. She (1st sis) turned fear into a breach and it worked well for her in the end, because our lawyer was terrible. We had made one agreement when we were talking but then when i received the written agreement it was way different and not specific and the lawyer was like sign it or i wont be able to do anything so after some time i had little choice. BUT that is not my current issue... My other sister who is living there still and I regained co-trustee status after all that and she led me to believe she was going along with the plans we made.

The problem is the two sisters failed to get along so the one sister filed only 11 days after moms funeral without really talking to me at all. So it seemed she was way out of line. She made no effort to work with us and what i saw at that time was the colorado sister arranged funeral and really started off taking care of things and emailing us everyday. She started off doing great, also the attacking sister claimed i was breaching because i conspired with the other one, which was so off the wall and she did spend 5 years in a mental institution so it seemed wacked. in fact her and her lawyer were asked seperately why remove me and both of them hesitated for a lengthy pause and then said "uuuuuuuuuuuuuuhhhh", and had NOTHING to say to it.

 

[mohaabtsh40]

These are things you allowed to go on. If you do not take proactive steps, you will likely find she spends more than he part of the inheritance by the time you get to an accounting.

HOW did i allow her to take the checks and open a trust account somewhere without including me?

 

[mohaabtsh40]

You convince her to comply or you go for another drag through the courts. There are no magic words that can change things.

Some things certainly seem like a breach of fiduciary duty. However, things you "fear" are not. And, unless the trust and will demand the trustee or executor are not to be paid, she may have a claim for her effort.

the trust does say she gets 23k less, (which she contests) than me and other sister, who has since been paid off. so splitting that 50% is almost more than what is left, other than the house which only has about 50k equity.

Fear was ruled in our case to be reason enough to remove us once and assign a rip off of a public administrator who completely favored the attacking sister by charging trust to ship items to her, and for things she really didn't even do. There is a huge disagreement about that neutral trustees bill for 12k during the short time she used our trust to do nothing.

Sorry im starting to rant again

 

[mohaabtsh40]

ok please tell me the best way that from california, i can find a great lawyer for the lowest possible fees, to get a free consultation for this colorado case.
What is the best source? Please dont be smart and say google. Thats how i got here.

Also when she took the checks from the previous court appointed administrator and opened a new "family trust" and provided me NO information and did not put my name on it... Was that a crime that criminal court would get involved with?? Could criminal charges be brought by me?

Now she is telling me i have no money left at all except the equity in house which isnt much

 

[mohaabtsh40]

So my sister had listed the house, but she delayed the realtor from taking pics for the listing and so the realtor after two months of rescheduling that with my sister "more times than she can count", finally canceled the listing completely out of frustration. I had told the realtor that i was not sure i could agree to a purchase agreement if it was going to be based on sister being moved by a date. I asked if she could find a way to help me convince my sister to move now rather than waiting for a buyers offer. So, because of that my sister is blaming me for the canceled listing when the cancellation notice i recieved from realtor clearly says:

"I`m sorry, but I can no longer represent you in the sale of your home. I have been unable to get access to the home for pictures for over two months from when the initial listing was signed and amendments to extend the listing start date have not been signed to keep me in compliance with the contract. I have been rescheduled for photos too many times. I need to focus my time on clients who are ready to sell their homes."

I also have other emails from her that show more about the many appontments my sister failed to honor.

so now im back to the house is not listed, my sister will not move and there is not enough money left to go through the whole court process all over again. We are going to end up losing the house too if we do not get it sold asap. If we go back to court it takes so long to the hearing that we wouldnt have the money to keep the mortgage going if that would be delaying listing and selling. As my sister blames the first run the court as the reason she didnt move and im like you didnt need the court thing to end to move out...

a good question here now is, my sister thinks that where the trust says we as cotrustees can handle the trust as if we are the owners of the peroperties in it, she thinks that means she can choose to stay there if she wants . I think that where it says when my mom dies we are to pay all her debts in a reasonable amount of time, would have to include this giant debt on the house, i also think that the house is not an asset till its paid for but rather a liability and also the only way to pay that debt in a reasonable time would have been to list it imeediately to sell to pay off that debt. so which of those two interpretations of that part of the trust docs is the one that would work in court?
If you had to represent one of us in this battle who would you prefer to represent and what would you do to nail it?

 

[justalayman]

I've listed many homes while I was a Realtor. The greatest portion of them involved no pictures taken inside the home. While such pictures are beneficial, in no way would the lack of pictures of the inside of the home prevent the home from being marketed.


You might as well figure you won't sell the home since you said you don't know if you can agree to a sales agreement with a time set for sister to move out. Do you expect a buyer to simply allow sister to live there as long as she wishes?

 

[mohaabtsh40]

I've listed many homes while I was a Realtor. The greatest portion of them involved no pictures taken inside the home. While such pictures are beneficial, in no way would the lack of pictures of the inside of the home prevent the home from being marketed.


You might as well figure you won't sell the home since you said you don't know if you can agree to a sales agreement with a time set for sister to move out. Do you expect a buyer to simply allow sister to live there as long as she wishes?

No, That seems to be what sister thinks... I expect my sister to move... but lets just say i sign a purchase agreement that has a closing date in 45 days. Then she tries to reschedule that, or does not meet that date and still hangs around. What happens is the closing date is the date the bank funds the buyers loan, but because of this they do not and buyer is sol while having spent money for inspections, the buyer sues us, the realtor demands commission and we are still stuck with the house. If it is a part of the contract that i have no control over and i cannot trust it will be done, like this, what else can i do?

but we have gotten off topic. I didnt cause a delay because no contract was even presented. The realtor cancelled the listing because she was tired of my sister flaking on her for two months, and refused to sign the extension for the listing agreement. How can you show the house if you cannot even get in it for pics. The pics isnt why she cancelled as much as it was knowing that if she cant get in for that, she cant get in to show the home either. my sister even flaked on giving her the keys.

So if she dragged the realtor around for two months, you can see how she has managed to drag me around even longer. it will be a year and a half that she lived there after my mom passed by the time we close if we did have it on the market right now. She hasnt paid rent to the trust but she has used trust assets for her own benefit paying mortgage payments for her to live there. I know you can see how that is self dealing.

Most investors are stuck evicting occupants at auctions, this house will be auctioned if we dont sell it very soon, and we will not get jack. There is about 100k equity minus realtor fees (25k) and w/e we need for closing.

is there a site for ordinary folk like myself to get forms for asking her to show me the transaction history and provide bank information for me to contact the bank to access the account she put all the money in, so trhat i can have my requests in writing for the courts if we get there?

 

[justalayman]

Not trying to be condescending but you are either going to have to hire help (an attorney) or simply wait for sister to do something. This is way out of your ability to deal with without an attorney.

 

[mohaabtsh40]

Not trying to be condescending but you are either going to have to hire help (an attorney) or simply wait for sister to do something. This is way out of your ability to deal with without an attorney.

Ill ask again, how do i best go about finding one in colo while living in cali and without enough in the trust to convince a lawyer that its even worth their time just because it is what i need? What is the best method to finding a lawyer that will even work for me? and do a good job of it. everytime i google it i get pointed back to this site

My last lawyer was so bad i have hardly any faith in the whole system anymore

 

[Dandy Don]

If you know the city where the county court probate courthouse is located, do a GOOGLE search, using the phrase, for example "Denver Colorado trust attorney" and then interview with 3 or more trust attorneys until you find one sympathetic enough to help you (which is going to be very hard to find one willing to represent you pro-bono).

If I were you I would ask the attorney (the one who helped your other sister get a settlement already) to see if he would be willing to also assist you, since he is already familiar with many of the facts of the case.

 

[mohaabtsh40]

If you know the city where the county court probate courthouse is located, do a GOOGLE search, using the phrase, for example "Denver Colorado trust attorney" and then interview with 3 or more trust attorneys until you find one sympathetic enough to help you (which is going to be very hard to find one willing to represent you pro-bono).

If I were you I would ask the attorney (the one who helped your other sister get a settlement already) to see if he would be willing to also assist you, since he is already familiar with many of the facts of the case.

That is what i was thinking too, and i'll do that today.
Thank you for that advice, dandydon
My sister just told me there is NO money left (aside from equity) and she is not moving till we enter into a purchase agreement with a buyer, while it isnt even listed yet. and she ignores me with wth happened to the money, why wasnt i notified when it got spent and how will the mortgage get paid til it sells now, and show me the receipts and proof it went towards the benefit of the trust. I still havent gotten information on where the account she opened for the trust is at. (what bank i mean).

As far as finding someone to represent me you are right it is nearly impossible to find someone who would waste time on a small case like this when the same time spent, could get them much more for someone who has a higher value estate.

The further complication here is the person that ends up getting appointed as neutral trustee is going to charge a huge amount. The last one (NT) took 12k from us and did nothing really. It is going to be hard to explain to the other sisters attorney that i did not agree with that outcome and also ask for help.