Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts
My brother has put all of my elderly mother's money in his name only. He was told to go to the bank and put the money in an account with all 3 siblings, this is not what he did. I became suspicious that he may have done something else as well, as my mother owns 2 properties. I looked it up in the registry of deeds and I see that her properties are now in a Life Estate deeded to only one of the siblings, my brother. This is not my mother's intent, however, she becomes angry at my sister and I if we try to talk to her about it. She claims that he will take care of dividing everything 3 ways later. She is very upset that we even ask saying we need to "trust" him. We don't trust that this will happen. Somehow he has convinced her that he is saving the property and saving money on taxes by putting everything in his name. What can we do to assure that my mother's intent is carried out. They say they have a "thing" that is notorized saing he must sell the properties and divide the money 3 ways, however, he refuses to show us a copy and claims the lawyer has the copy. They won't tell us the name of the lawyer because he says that I will "call him and bother him."
1 Answer from Attorneys
Hello, and welcome to LawGuru.
I'm going to attempt to answer this as plainly as possible. What I think has happened is your mother may have created an Inter-vivos Trust, for the benefit of her three children, and named your brother as Trustee. If this is the case, and you are a beneficiary you are entitled to an accounting of the trust, and to know the assets and the extent of your beneficial interest. Because your brother refuses to show you the document or even tell you the attorney's name, you are at a severe disadvantage.
How you handle getting this information is up to you, you have several options; ask your brother, tell him there may be potential tax liability and/or gift consequences that can be avoided if you know your rights under any possible trust document, you could ask your mother if she established a trust, and with what attorney, as she would have had to have signed any documents prepared by the attorney, you could take it to a further extreme, and ask your brother in writing, to give you a full accounting of any property in which you have a beneficial interest, the latter advice may be best accomplished by hiring your own attorney.
Lastly, you could wait it out, and see what happens. If your brother does in fact fail to perform his duties under a Trust agreement you will have grounds to file a suit against him for breach of his fiduciary duty. This is not the best solution, as the properties and any money from their sale could be spent or disposed of quickly, and properly tracking it could be time consuming and costly.
If he has recorded a new deed, as you suggested, with a life estate to himself, there may be other documents, such as the trust recorded along with the deed, to prove title. You could search for this yourself, or do a title search on the properties to see how they were transfered.
Good luck! I hope I provided some insight into your troubles.
Very truly yours,
Georg C. LaBonte, Esq.
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