Legal Question in Wills and Trusts in Missouri
How to stop attorney's fees from depleting estate?
I'm a part heir to the estate of my aunt who passed away in July. She set up a living trust and appointed her attorney as successor trustee as well as personal representative for her will. The attorney's specialty is criminal law, not estates.
We received the first bill this week. The charges are unbelievable. The attorney has no assistants or paralegals, so every activity, miscellaneous phone call, trip to pick up mail or go to the bank, etc., is billed at his top rate. His associate, who also bills at the top rate, accompanied the heirs to do an inventory of the house. We had no idea the estate would be billed $200 for each hour the guy stood there doing nothing but watch us open boxes. We've expressed concern about the billing and the attorney's response is ''That's my rate, sorry!'' My sister's husband is an attorney and was shocked at the bill and the nature of some of the charges.
My question is this... if the next bill is equally outrageous, what recourse do we have? As trustee, he has a fiduciary responsibility to the beneficiaries. Obviously eating up the entire estate with questionable billing is not in our interest.
Thanks for your response.
1 Answer from Attorneys
Re: How to stop attorney's fees from depleting estate?
You do not say whether the assets are already in the trust or are in a probate estate that will ultimate pour over to the trust. This distinction is important because in Missouri all probate fees are subject to approval by the probate court. IF the assets are alrerady in the trust and this is trust administration work, I will need to see a copy of the trust in order to determine the provisions that control removal of the trustee.
I will be happy to help you with this problem, feel free to contact me.
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