Video Summary
What are the responsibilities of a trustee of a trust? Well, first off, we need to talk about the usual circumstances. Whenever you set up a trust and you’re the trustee during your lifetime, and so you are talking about the duties and responsibilities of the trustee after you pass away, and then the successor trustee takes over and it is now a irrevocable trust, and so the trustee should then notify the beneficiaries that there are beneficiary under the trust. Many times this can be done by simply supplying them with a copy of the trust, although you don’t necessarily have to unless they request that you need to. The Trustee would need to file what they call a notice of trust with the clerk of the court, obtain a federal identification number as trustee of the trust so that it can file a tax return for the trust for any income it receives during their, while they’re administering it, they need to determine what creditors there are out there and see about getting the creditors paid. Another function the Trustee needs to do is to verify if there are any assets that are in the name, just in the decedent’s name and not in the decedent’s name as Trustee. If there are, there’s usually what they call a poor over will, and there would need to be a probate administration. These are usually done together and so that the Trustee is usually the executor also for a will, and it’s called a poor over will. That says that they leave all their assets to the Trustee and then the Trustee then administers the trust, pays the creditors, unless it’s a very sizable trust, there isn’t any estate taxes in Florida or to the federal government. And so then once that’s all done taken care of as far as accreditors, and then the trustee needs to make distribution and prefer an accounting for all the beneficiaries to make a distribution, the distribution pursuant to the trust, and there’s a provision on how they to do that to the trustee can be released from any liability by sending a limitation notice out to the beneficiary. So, they can’t object to how they administer the trust. The assets can be distributed in kind, meaning distribute the assets such as stock. Some beneficiaries say, well, I just want the stock, rather than you having to sell the stock and then liquidate it and divide up the money. So, these are all things that a Trustee would do and suggest that they probably need to contact an attorney for some guidance and assistance in conjunction with the matter. If you have any questions, give me a call at (727) 847-2288.