Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in California

This all takes place in California. Mother and her boyfriend of 30 years had a living trust which was supposed to be split in half at the death of either. He is the primary beneficiary and my brother and I remainder beneficiaries. Mother passes,for 6 months no communication from him. Get an attorney through a legal referral to send letter asking for an update as to the irrevocable trust of mothers and an accounting. They reply with a allocation agreement that they determined her 1/2 of the estate to be 390,000 omitting all of her jewelery(which probably has a value between 60,000 to 100,000) and other items. The vague accounting shows them taking all of his expenses out of mothers trust. It states in the trust this needs to be done with reasonable discretion as he has pensions coming in an great medical coverage. The trust states the irrevocable trust was amendable up to the date of the allocation agreement .The boyfriend made he and his daughter trustees of the irrevocable the day before the allocation. Do they have a fiduciary obligation to look out for our interests as remainder beneficiaries? They'll spend all of her trust first cutting us out of the estate.


Asked on 9/09/10, 2:31 pm

1 Answer from Attorneys
Jonathan Reich De Castro, West, Chodorow, Glickfeld & Nass, Inc.

From the little that you have said it appears that the trustees of the trust could be breaching their fiduciary duty. Whether or not they are will depend on a lot of details including the exact language of the trust and other things. It would be advisable for you to sit down with a lawyer as soon as possible to review you situation.

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Answered on 9/15/10, 10:10 am


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