Top 10 ways to save money when administering a trust
By: Mina N. Sirkin, Esq.
Have you been appointed as successor trustee of a trust? Most trust administration clients want to know the secrets of saving money when administering a trust. Here are the top ways to save money and help facilitate the process of trust administration.
1. Do your homework before you retain counsel. Get a list of all of the decedent's assets. Gather a folder with the bank and investment statements of the decedent.
2. Negotiate with prospective counsel to see if they offer percentage based settlements, or flat fee settlements. You should have a clear picture of the process, time and a balanced expectation of fees after your consultation appointment with trust counsel. Barring litigation, trust administration clients have many options to explore with attorneys regarding fees. Hourly fees are sometimes suitable. They are best suited to successor trustees who intend to use trust counsel as advisor counsel, and who plan to do the job themselves.
3. Before you retain counsel, ask your attorney for organizational tools which will help you save money.
4. Ask your attorney if they offer a basic trust administration checklist.
5. Have a distribution plan and timeline. Talk to your attorney and develop this in writing. Once developed, try your best to stick to the plan.
6. Have a prescheduled monthly call appointment with your trust counsel to spot any issues and to adjust the distribution plan. Having a prescheduled call appointment lets you get in many questions in one call, it saves your attorney planning time, and saves you time and money. It also keeps lines of communication open so that you are protected.
7. Use email to ask your attorney urgent trust administration questions. This will be specific and you can track it in writing. Don't wait until a beneficiary calls you to ask your counsel questions. Before you take major actions which affect the beneficiaries, ask your attorney to prepare a Notice of Proposed Action.
8. Keep a Trustee's Notebook TM. Ask your attorney to show you a sample. Journal each action, and log the time you spend in administering the trust. Keep your accounting schedules in your notebook and keep them up to date each time you write a check, and each time a deposit is to be made. Track sales in your sales schedules. This will save an enormous amount of time when it comes time to do the accounting. Your attorney will not have to recreate the wheel for you. If possible, keep track of the trust expense and deposit registers on an Excel spreadsheet. This way, you can email them to your counsel for review and clarification.
9. Whenever possible, have the beneficiaries agree to issues in writing. If you have had a family meeting and have informally come to an agreement on something, put it in writing. This helps people remember the issues and tracks the agreement and prevents litigation.
10. As soon as your meet your attorney, create a personalities list for your attorney, with the names, addresses and telephone number of each beneficiary, or heir. Be sure to include a personality description for each person and give this list to your attorney. Tell your attorney ahead of time if you anticipate a beneficiary to contest the trust. Creating this list helps expedite the notification process and ends the contest period faster. By ending the contest period faster, you limit the time for contests and save the trust lots of litigation costs and expenses.
Mina N. Sirkin is a Protate,Trust & Estates expert attorney in Los Angeles, California. Ms. Sirkin is Certified as a Specialist in Estate Planning, Probate and Trust Law by the Board of Legal Specialization of the State Bar of California. [email protected]. http://www.SirkinLaw.com.
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Copyright 2008 Mina N. Sirkin. All rights reserved.
