Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Illinois

Hi. A "typical" fee means you call a few trust companies and get an idea of what they would charge to manage a similar-sized trust.

There are no fee schedules. You didn't say if you were a professional like a CPA or lawyer. If you are a non professional you probably will need to engage a lawyer and a CPA so this has the effect of lowering your fee. There is very little guidance out there but you could either charge by the hour at a reasonable rate or a fixed percentage. A professional trustee may charge between .5% and 2% annually depending on the amount and nature of the assets under management and whether there are any special problems in dealing with the beneficiaries. I wish I could be more helpful but that's as close as I can come to an answer. www.legacylaws.com

I disagree with Mr. Labovitz. Unless you are a trust company, you should not be allowed to charge like one. If I was representing a beneficiary, I would strongly object to a Trustee Fee between $100-$150/hour unless you had all of the resources of, say, JP Morgan Chase. I would then encourage such a beneficiary to sue you if you insisted on something like that. I am confident that I would win such a suit under Illinois law.

Similarly, if you are an untrained and unskilled Trustee (e.g., NOT an accountant, financial advisor, etc), I would advise against billing a percentage rate of the Estate. If your percentage is vastly out of proportion to the work you actually performed, you could walk into a similar lawsuit.

Most Trustees can safely bill for fees at around $20-30/hour. If you want a higher rate, you'd best be able to justify how your specific skills benefitted the Trust. Also, I strongly encourage you to keep a journal of all time that you spend in connection with your role as Trustee as well as all expenses incurred, including all automobile usage. For each entry, record the date, the amount of time spent, and the activity performed. Ultimately, such records may help you to avoid a lawsuit, or to win if a lawsuit proved necessary.