Estate/Executor

[fejm]

State of PA. Person is executor of a will and also trustee of a will for. This is for two different people who are related. Person who has trust requested money from the trust, the trustee disbursed money from the estate of the deceased rather than from the trust. Rationale was trustee "didn't know how to get trust money" The person the trust is for is not even mentioned in the will of the deceased and the deceased did not owe this person money. Is it leagal for an executor to remove money from an estate to pay money to person you are the trustee of?
Also will of deceased gave each child a specific amt of money in a codicil of the will. Executor disbursed that money to each child almost 1 1/2 years after the deceased passed away. Now a year later the executor disburses an additional amt of money to each child that is not listed in the will or codicil. Is this legal? The deceased did not owe money to children so the executor was not paying off the deceased debts. Executor says the deceased wrote this on a piece of paper before she died. The deceased had metastatic cancer and was not in the right frame of mind several months before she died.
What can be done if any of this is illegal?

 

[fejm]

should of read

trustee of a trust.

 

[advisor10]

(02-05-2001)


DEAR FEJM:

The trustee has broad discretionary power in handling trust affairs. Your question as to whether or not this was proper can not really be answered without looking at the will to see if the beneficiary was specifically authorized to receive such payment.

In regards to the executor disbursing an additional amount of money to the children 1 1/2 years after the decedent's death, there is nothing illegal or wrong about this, since he is carrying out his legal duty to see that estate assets are divided properly to the intended beneficiaries. TRUSTS ARE FREQUENTLY SET UP FOR THAT PURPOSE, and occasionally there are assets that mature or become payable at a future date, or as the decedent may have left specific instructions for these funds to be paid at a certain time.

 

[fejm]

confusing post

The will is that of person A. The trust is that of person B. Person A and B are not the same person. The trust has nothing to do with the will of person A. Person C is the executor of the will of person A and the trustee of the person B.

The distribution of money 1 1/2 yrs after the death from the will of person A has nothing to do the the trust of person B. That money was in addition to what was in the codicle of person A's will. The codicle clearly stated that three beneficiaries were to receive x amount of money from the estate of person A. Person C disbursed that money as stated in the codicle. Person C then disbursed more money to those beneficiaries even though the codicle and the will do not say to disburse more money to them. They are not the beneficiaries of the will itself and are only mentioned in the codicle to recieve x amt of money from the estate.

Bottom Line person C removed monies from estate of person A and gave it to person B as a trust disbursement. Another wards Person C is giving person B money from the estate of person A.

This can't be ok by the law. Hopefully it will clear up any confusion.