Guardian of Estate Must Pay Personally For Copies of Checks
AUGUST 11, 2003 VOLUME 11, NUMBER 6 The issue facing Florida guardian Barbara Keithly was simple: should she have her bank return the original canceled checks on the guardianship account, or would it acceptable to receive only copies with her monthly statement? Although the question seems simple enough, it provides an opportunity to consider the […]
Court Looks To Exact Words Of Trust To Settle Trustee Dispute
JANUARY 20, 2003 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 29 The Montana Supreme court has words to the wise for drafting and following a trust’s terms in upholding a lower court denial of a request to remove a corporate trustee. In the Matter of the Estate of Mildred I. Berthot, December 5, 2002. The Berthot case demonstrates the […]
Bankruptcy Court Discharges Trustee’s Liability for Breach
DECEMBER 16, 2002 VOLUME 10, NUMBER 24 Antonia Quevillon, then age 70 and in poor health, consulted attorney Carl Baylis about her estate plan. Mr. Baylis prepared a living trust for her, and arranged transfer of apartment buildings she owned into the trust’s name. The trust named Mr. Baylis himself as co-trustee—to serve along with […]
Trustee in Fee Dispute Must Repay a Share of Bank Profits
JUNE 3, 2002 VOLUME 9, NUMBER 49 When a trustee charges fees in excess of what is due, how much should it have to repay to the trusts? That was the question posed and decided recently by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, sitting in California. Security Pacific National Bank merged into […]
Déjà Vu: Another AZ Public Fiduciary Charged In Thefts
MAY 14, 2001 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 46 In 1997 a rural Arizona county Public Fiduciary stunned the state’s advocacy community when he acknowledged taking hundreds of thousands of dollars from his ward’s estates (“Mohave Public Fiduciary Pleads Guilty, Faces Certain Jail Time“). Thefts by private fiduciaries (and lawyers representing fiduciaries) are all too common, but […]
Conservator’s Self-Dealing Set Aside Despite Court Approval
OCTOBER 2, 2000 VOLUME 8, NUMBER 14 If an individual becomes incapacitated someone must take responsibility for his or her business affairs. That may mean the appointment of a conservator (in some states, “guardian of the estate”) by the court. Sometimes the individual will have had the foresight to establish a trust, or at least […]
