Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Maryland

Transfer of Assets
I have a friend invloved in a situation and I was wondereing if you could shed some light on the situation. He is the grantor of a revocable trust and he is also co-trustee on that trust and he has a fiduciary that states that the trustees can act independently of each other. The brokerage firm he has the account with has a policy that states Letters of authorization are needed when transferring assets between accounts unless they are same name, same tax payer id. The problem is he believes since his trust account has his taxpayer id on it (and he and the other trustee can act independenlty of each other) that he should be able to verbally instruct the firm to move assets from his trust to his IRA account without a signed Letter of Authorization. He came to me because I work at a brokerage frim but I don't know the answer. Is there some way legally that his firm could be at risk (liabilty) to except verbal instructions from him in this situations. It is not a big deal at this point and I intend to tell him to just send the letter but the situation left me wondering what the correct answer would be.

Asked on 4/25/03, 12:55 pm

G. Joseph Holthaus III Law Offices of G. Joseph Holthaus

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Re: Transfer of Assets

A Letter of Authorization, signed by all relevant parties, and including the proper TIN is the proper way to address this.

This transaction creates tax issues, consult a knowledgeable tax prepaper.

Answered on 4/28/03, 12:57 pm

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