Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

This is a long story with so many different turns I don�t know what to do. 10 years ago the court took over my father-in-laws estate and assigned Union Safe Deposit Bank as the Trust Administrator. Over time Bank of the West acquired Union Safe Deposit Bank. During this time the Trust had several Administrator assigned to the account. Each time it took a while for them to get caught up with the account. The bank was assigned to set up and fund the Marital, Survivor�s and Q Tip Trusts. It took five years for the trust to be funded. During that time the spent, hundreds of thousand of dollars, paying accountants to fund the trust. Now that my father-in-law has passed we have had questions, but they refuse to answer any of the beneficiaries� questions. We noticed that there are two withdraws of over $100K each and they will not say what they are for. While my father-in-law was alive we were told we had no standing to ask about where the money was going. My Father-in-law had an attorney that was supposed to be watching out for his best interest, which we feel was not done, but that is beside the point. Recently the bank went under and audit and our account was one that was audited. Directly after the audit was completed the Trust Administrator and the Trust Investor were fired. We were told that they were sending out the final distribution plan, with waiver and release forms in September. Now there is a new administrator to the account and she will not answer any questions about the Trust. The Trust has 4 properties and a few investments, it is not that complicated. Two of the properties are income property. Over ten years that the Bank has been the administrator they never raised the rent on any of the tenants. The properties are in San Francisco and there is rent control. In fact they lowered the rent on some of the tenants when they took over. The rent for two bed apartments are between $700 and $800. These rents are very low especially for San Francisco. Meaning that if we tried to sell the apartments we would get considerably less for them because of the rent. Is it not the Administrator responsibility to maximize the value of the estate? They Bank was also ordered by the court to have Frank�s (father-in-law) truck remove and abandoned in 2003. Over the years we would remind the administrator at the time of the two court orders telling them to have the truck towed and abandoned. All of which said they were working on it. Now they will not have the truck removed because they said that all tangible property is now the responsibility of the Executor of the estate. Now that the truck has been parked for 12 years and it has sunk in to the ground, donation is no longer an option, in fact it will cost upwards of $300 to have this removed. Because the bank failed to do what the court ordered them to do it now will cost us money, wouldn�t the bank and not the trust be responsible for the payment? The last administrator thought it would be funny to have the garbage service stopped in the house that we lived in. We tried everything to have the garbage put in our name. Because of the banks refusal to pay the bill, (having plenty of money to do so) garbage collected at our home for two months. It took several phone calls and emails to finally get this taken care of. When we call the administrator about the garbage he laughed and said good luck with the garbage. They blocked our ability to have garbage collected and cause us more stress than we need all because they don�t like us. Is there anything we can do to get this Trust out of their hands and make them pay for all the money�s lost during their time of handling the estate?


Asked on 11/03/10, 5:00 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys

Aaron Feldman Feldman Law Group

You raise numerous issues and I am sure that your synopsis is the tip of the iceberg. An attorney would need to review the file in detail to give you specific answers, but here are a couple of general comments. First, it is difficult and expensive to remove a trustee. Usually a trust has a provision that provides for liability of a trustee only for gross negligence or wilful misconduct. That is a high standard to prove, but not impossible if you can assemble good evidence. Secondly, the 2 suspicious $100k transactions could fall within the realm of financial elder abuse and there may still be time to pursue those claims. Third, if the trust is court supervised, then there should have been regular accountings filed with the court and reviewing those may shed more light on some of your concerns. I owuld be happy to discuss this further with you. Please feel free to contact me.

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Answered on 11/08/10, 5:42 pm


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