Acting For Beneficiaries

In some cases, the Estate Trustee begins to act with the best of intentions and slowly or suddenly becomes overwhelmed with the task.  A good Estate Trustee will recognize this situation and retain a lawyer to provide assistance, guidance and advice.  Sometimes, Estate Trustees simply start to ignore the tasks at hand and the situation becomes worse.  In some other cases it seems that the Estate Trustee did not have good intentions ever.

Regardless of the cause, the warning signs of problems in an estate usually include one or more of the following:

• The Estate Trustee may stop taking calls from the beneficiaries;
• The Estate Trustee may refuse or be unable to account for certain assets;
• The Estate Trustee may appear to prefer one beneficiary or group of beneficiaries to another;

The Estate Trustee is basically acting under the authority of the court and there are mechanisms in place to remove the Trustee or force him/her to act appropriately.