Can't find my Trust

What is the name of your state (only U.S. law)? California.

My Father recently passed away and have been unable to locate where he might've kept his Trust. Is their a way to locate a copy somewhere? Is it public record? I do know for sure that there is one.

Generally not. If you can't find where he kept important papers, you might try contacting his lawyer or whoever might have drawn it up to see if they have a copy.

A couple places to look for some clues:

- If the trust was a revocable trust, then there is probably a stock investment account, or bank account statements. Those would be addressed to the trustee. Trustee should have a copy of the trust.

- Those same accounts, would undoubtedly have generated taxable events in prior years, to which there would be dividends or interest. Look in copies of prior taxes, and the backup documents for the taxes, for an idea of where the assets were being held, and who the trustee was.

- If it was an irrevocable trust, then there would be a totally separate tax form, which your dad may or may not have a copy of. He also may or may not have been given copies of account statements. Those may give you an indication of who the trustee was.

- Contact family lawyer.

- Sometimes investment houses, will require a copy of the trust when they open the account. They may or may not have a copy. If they did, it would be unlikely they give you a copy out of the blue, so may require letter from lawyer so request looks official (in some manner).

- Safe, or safety deposit boxes should have a copy. Check where he banks to find out if had sdb, would need probate and lawyer to get access if not already on signature card.

- Check on data DVD's, CD's, computer harddrives, and potentially backup services for softcopy files.

- Give some college kid hacker couple hundred bucks (only kidding).

A quick/easy first step would be to check how his property is titled. Same with any bank/investment accounts. He might have had a trust but never funded the trust. What about a will?

If you know who your Father's lawyer was, contact him/her.
If he also happened to have a will, contact the executor of the will.
Who told you there was a trust - your Father, himself, or someone else? If
someone else, contact them.

curb1 said:

A quick/easy first step would be to check how his property is titled. Same with any bank/investment accounts. He might have had a trust but never funded the trust. What about a will?

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How it was titled probably doesn't give a clue to the whereabouts. It probably just says something like "Daddy Kev trustee Daddy Kev trust" or something along those lines.

FlyingRon,

I was referring to the property that he owned, not the trust itself. If the property was titled in the trust it would be an easy/quick way to find out if the trust exists.

good advice to check all these places, but my experience is that most of them do not have copies.

of all the banking institutions i have used, only one made a copy of the trust - bank of america.

all the others just glanced at the document.

many institutions, including merrill lynch, asked me to fill out their own forms, with regarding to setting up trust accounts.

so do contact all of the places where you hold investments, but dont expect many to have the full documents.

however, some info is better than none.

most banking institutions will ask that you place down all of the beneficiaries of the trust. this is because they can give you full fdic insurance for each beneficiary. otherwise you are limited to just one amount of insurance.

every institution did explain this to me, and it only has advantages for the most part, for the trustor.

so you would be apt to have some proof as to who the beneficiaries are, should you need to prove it.

tq,

do you have any direct experience (if only one case) where a trust document was never found ?

if so, what occurs ? it seems to me that some sort of court intervention would be necessary ?

if a judge could be presented with some information from accounts as to who the beneficiaries were, would that be substantial towards making some sort of ruling ?