Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Arizona

Re: Time limit for administering a Trust

The trust is administered according to the terms of the trust agreement, including the time and manner for terminating the trust. If the trust is "irrevocable," then a beneficiary is entitled to receive a copy of the trust agreement and may have rights to an accounting. Any complaint that you may have about the administration of the trust should be brought before the Probate Court which has jurisdiction over the trust, which is a separate legal entity in the eyes of the law.

Revocable trusts are private agreements and do not have a requirement that they be recorded or the beneficiaries be notified, particularly because the grantor/creator of the trust can revoke it at any time, in part or in whole, and take the property back. An irrevocable trust is a completed transfer of the assets to the trust, there is still no requirement that the trust be recorded but the beneficiaries are entitled to know the terms of the trust and their interest in the trust. In both cases, the assets in the trust, income and principal, are held, managed and distributed as provided in the trust agreement and are not subject to probate ( the trust does not die). The probate court gets involved when someone petitions the court for relief, for wrongdoing, for benefits owed, for breach of duty by the trustee, etc.