Trust litigation engages a dispute between trustees or beneficiaries about trust assets. The Trustee has a fiduciary duty and obligation to keep beneficiaries enlightened and is responsible for distributing and administering assets in the Trust to beneficiaries as per trust terms.
Trust and business law language can be disorienting. In most cases, disagreements about the rights to Trust agreements do pass off. You will mostly see entities controversial over the legal matters regarding their privileges to a Trust with ambiguous terms in it. Sometimes it even takes a court to get the issue solved.
If you are a Trustee or Co-Trustee of a Trust and have issues with the recipient, then Trust Litigation Attorney Fort Lauderdale representing trustees are of paramount importance. Please review the below list to ensure you are on the right side of the courts.
- Take Inventory: You require to take inventory and secure inventory of the estate. Please keep a note that many instances where a family member decides to take certain assets because they feel they earned it or was promised a peculiar asset. Once you shielded, find out the current value of each asset.
- Keep Beneficiaries Informed: Once the person dies, you have a fiduciary duty to contact all the beneficiaries of your new roles, your address, and the best methodology of reaching you. Keeping the beneficiaries reasonably informed is necessary.
- Pay bills: To hold up your fiduciary duty, keeping all correspondence up-to-date needed to close the Trust before distribution.
- Manage all tax-related tasks: It essential to work closely with an accountant to ensure filing tax returns rightly completed with an update to the beneficiaries.
Trust Litigation
In the event of a dispute, and during these times, the team of Trust Litigation Attorneys Fort Lauderdale works closely with families to offer a no-charge, no-obligation audiences. We feel confident to render our upfront time and effort because of experience knowing when a case warrants litigation. No demand to waste time! Within an hour with our fully fledged trust litigation attorneys, you will see where you stand.
At the first onset, when the trust dies, a beneficiary has an allotted time to compete the trust for its validity. After the defined time-frame, the participant role will have given up their rights. Hence, as a beneficiary, it is critical to take early action to protect your legal rights.
Key takeaway: As a beneficiary, read the trust document and gauge it against the trustor’s health at the instance.
Take into the following into thought process:
- Lack of testamentary capacity: If there’s a discrepancy with signatures or dates of the trust? What was the level of mental stability of the trustor at the execution of the trust?
- Undue Influence: Was the trustor induced to act which otherwise than by their own free will?
- Fraud: Trust Litigation Attorneys Fort Lauderdale needed for forensic analysis.
A Trust Litigation Attorney is a lawyer who deals with the legal aspects of the administration of trusts, estates and other fiduciary relationships. A Trust Litigation Attorney may also known as a trust and estate litigator, or an estate attorney.
Some of the responsibilities that they have are to:
- Advise clients on the law relating to trusts, estates and other fiduciary relationships;
- Draft wills, deeds and other instruments that affect property;
- Investigate claims against fiduciaries for breach of their duties;
- Represent clients in court proceedings involving such matters.
The Bottom line:
Know your rights, stay within defined time-frames, stay reasonable in your expectations from the trustee. And reckon if there is a “no-contest clause.”