M
msbliss
Guest
California...
My mother had her bf of 14 years write her trust, serve as trustee, and declared him a beneficiary in the form of a life estate. (Last October, just before she died.)
The paragraph describing his lifetime income isn't written clearly. Based on my conversations with her before she died, I interpret the trust differently than the trustee (her former partner.)
My brother and I (beneficiaries, payable after his death) had a handshake agreement made after my mom died, that we would be included in investment deciscions. We recently discovered that he has not been honoring that agreement, so there is doubt surfacing about how he is handling the trust.
He has been investing in ways that give him a higher income (like the interest on $90k note) and have caused us to lose potential equity by liquidating our real estate. Also, he interprets the trust as paying him a higher life-income than I read.
We asked for an annual accounting today, and he did not show us documentation of any kind. Instead, we got into a disagreement about how his life estate should be determined. He's been a wonderful influence in my life, but now I don't trust him and he's putting pressure on me to not take the trust to an attorney so that I may have it explained to me by an outside party. He is also the trustee for my 4 remaining family elders.
Help! How do I proceed in an effective way? Is this a job for a lawyer, mediator, what?
My mother had her bf of 14 years write her trust, serve as trustee, and declared him a beneficiary in the form of a life estate. (Last October, just before she died.)
The paragraph describing his lifetime income isn't written clearly. Based on my conversations with her before she died, I interpret the trust differently than the trustee (her former partner.)
My brother and I (beneficiaries, payable after his death) had a handshake agreement made after my mom died, that we would be included in investment deciscions. We recently discovered that he has not been honoring that agreement, so there is doubt surfacing about how he is handling the trust.
He has been investing in ways that give him a higher income (like the interest on $90k note) and have caused us to lose potential equity by liquidating our real estate. Also, he interprets the trust as paying him a higher life-income than I read.
We asked for an annual accounting today, and he did not show us documentation of any kind. Instead, we got into a disagreement about how his life estate should be determined. He's been a wonderful influence in my life, but now I don't trust him and he's putting pressure on me to not take the trust to an attorney so that I may have it explained to me by an outside party. He is also the trustee for my 4 remaining family elders.
Help! How do I proceed in an effective way? Is this a job for a lawyer, mediator, what?
First of all, let me apologize that no one has gotten to you until today. I guess the war/attack on America, etc., etc. The bottom line answer to your question is; this is a job for a lawyer. Anyone else is basically just going to get the same/equivalent of the handshake deal. Anything short of getting a lawyer involved will not get at the root of the problems: whether he is unlawfully taking actions that benefit him rather than the trust beneficiaries, as well as getting a neutral appraiser involved to value the remaining property. OK?