So, you need a new Trustee and you don’t like the next person named, huh? Removing a Trustee is never easy, but why bother even trying if the next person named to act as Trustee is no better than the currently acting Trustee? Well, you may be in for a nice surprise. When a court […]
When children inherit assets from a Trust there are basically two ways for them to receive the assets. They can receive their assets “outright and free of trust,” which means their share of the Trust will be distributed into their name now with no further strings attached. Or their share of the Trust can remain […]
Suppose you have fought a long, hard fight in court and taken your Trustee all the way to trial. You win the trial, obtain a court order, and now the Trustee refuses to comply with the terms of the court order. What do you do? There are several options you must enforce a court order […]
If you want to challenge a Trust or Trust amendment, it all starts with the pleadings. Pleadings refers to the paper work, usually a petition to the court, that must be drafted and filed to start the process. You have to know what to say and what legal claims to include to start your lawsuit. […]
In California, married couples typically create a joint Trust—One Trust where both husband and wife are the settlors, beneficiaries, and trustees. They transfer all of their property into the joint Trust and the Trust is revocable during their lifetime. That means it can be changed or terminated while they both are alive. Nothing set in […]
If you want to challenge a Trust or Trust amendment, it all starts with the pleadings. Pleadings refers to the paper work, usually a petition to the court, that must be drafted and filed to start the process. You have to know what to say and what legal claims to include to start your lawsuit. […]
You must have evidence if you want to win at trial. But what is evidence? There are three types of evidence: facts, witnesses, and documents. And most facts will be introduced at trial through either a witness or a document, or sometimes both. Evidence further comes in two broad varieties: direct and circumstantial. Direct evidence […]
If you are a party to a Trust lawsuit will your case help all the Trust beneficiaries? The answer is a definite maybe. There are times when your lawsuit could help other beneficiaries that did not join the case, but there are also times when the non-participating beneficiaries could be left out in the cold. […]
Hire A Lawyer If you have a Trustee who refuses to follow the Trust terms, you are headed to court. The only way to force a Trustee to act, to do the right thing, is to file a petition in probate court and ask the judge to issue orders that will force the Trustee to […]
Bad Trustees can be held liable for the harms and losses they cause to a Trust, but not criminally. We have written about this topic many times before, but it always seems to come up with clients and potential clients. Beneficiaries want their bad Trustees to be criminally liable for their breaches of Trust. It will […]
