What you can ask for when a trustee or executor goes quiet
When a parent dies and somebody else is holding the paperwork, there is usually a long quiet stretch before anything happens. Weeks pass, then months, and you still have not seen the trust or a number of any kind. Most of the time nothing sinister is going on. The person in charge is a sibling with a full-time job who did not ask for the role and has fallen behind on it. The silence may be as much about embarrassment as anything else. What people in that position want to know is whether they are allowed to push, and how hard. California has a surprisingly clear answer for that. A trustee is already under deadlines that started running at the death, and there is a route to the court if the asking does not work.
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What a trustee owes you after a death
When the person who created a revocable trust dies, the trust becomes irrevocable, and a clock starts. California gives the trustee 60 days to send a formal notice to every beneficiary and every heir of the person who died. The law spells out what goes in it. That list covers who created the trust, the date it was signed, the name and phone number of each trustee, where the trust is being handled, and a line telling you that you can ask for a complete copy of the trust's terms. Plenty of trustees miss this deadline, usually because nobody told them it existed. If a parent has died and nothing has arrived, you can ask for the notice and the copy in the same letter.
California requires a trustee to send formal notice to every beneficiary and every heir within 60 days of the death of the person who created the trust, and that notice must tell them they can ask for a complete copy of the trust's terms.
That notice also starts a deadline that runs against you. Once it has been served on you, you have 120 days to bring a court action contesting the trust. If a copy of the trust's terms reaches you inside that window, you get 60 days from the day it arrives, whichever date falls later. So if you read the trust and something looks wrong to you, that is a date to put on the calendar right away. Four months sounds like a lot while you are planning a funeral, and it goes by quickly.
A person served with a trustee's notice in California has 120 days from the date of service to contest the trust, or 60 days from the day a copy of the trust's terms is delivered inside that 120-day window, whichever is later.
Money gets its own rule. A trustee has to account at least once a year to each beneficiary who is entitled to current distributions. The same duty applies when the trust ends and when the trustee changes, with some exceptions. An account under California law is not simply a rambling email. The law lists exactly what has to be included in one, including receipts and payments, assets and debts, and the trustee's own pay. Smaller questions have a rule of their own. On a beneficiary's reasonable request, the trustee has to report information about the trust that bears on that beneficiary's interest. That is the one to lean on when all you want is the appraisal on the house.
With some exceptions, a California trustee has to account at least once a year to each beneficiary entitled to receive current distributions, and again when the trust ends and when the trustee changes.
When the request goes unanswered
So can you make a quiet trustee answer? You can, and it goes through the probate court. A beneficiary can ask the court to settle the trustee's accounts and review what the trustee has done. You can also ask it to order a copy of the trust handed over, to order the trustee to report on how the trust is being run, or to order a full account. The last two come with timing conditions. The trustee has to have failed to respond within 60 days of your reasonable written request, and you have to have received nothing like it in the six months before you asked.
That is why you put the request in writing even when the trustee is your brother. Date it, keep a copy, and send it in a way you can prove. A year from now, a dated letter is what gets you a petition and a text message is not. Most of the time the letter settles it anyway, because somebody finally has a deadline in front of them.
If it is a probate estate instead of a trust
Some of what families wait on sits in a court case rather than a trust, where the rules are different. Does a will stay private? It does not, once it has been filed. California gives whoever holds the original will 30 days from learning of the death to deliver it to the clerk of the superior court and to send a copy to the named executor. A will that has been filed is part of a public court file, and you can get it from the clerk for a copying fee. The executor then has one year from the day letters were issued to ask for final distribution or file a report on where things stand. That stretches to 18 months if the estate has to file a federal estate tax return. There is also a rule that forces the issue: the court has to order an account if an interested person petitions more than a year after the last account was filed. If no account has been filed at all, the year runs from the day letters were issued.
The best-known argument over accountings in a California probate estate is still running in Los Angeles. Michael Jackson died on June 25, 2009, and his estate is open in probate court there more than seventeen years later. In late October, according to news reports, his daughter Paris asked the court to cut the pay going to the people managing the estate until complete accountings are filed. Her filing says the financial statements she received came in late and incomplete. The estate called the motion completely without merit. It says the executors gave up executor fees at the start and are paid a separate court-ordered fee for running the business. The dollars in that estate are nothing like the dollars in most estates, but the provision a beneficiary leans on to get an accounting is the same one either way.
The steps you can take
• Put the request in writing, date it, keep a copy, and send it certified mail.
• If a parent has died and no trustee's notice has arrived, ask for the notice and a complete copy of the trust in one letter.
• The day you are served with a trustee's notice, put the 120-day date on your calendar.
• For a probate case, call the superior court clerk in the county where the person lived and ask for the file, since the will is public once it is delivered.
• Ask for specific things rather than a general update, such as a copy of the document, a list of assets with values, or a date for the next account.
• Do not sign a receipt, a release, or a waiver of accounting until you understand what signing it gives up.
Asking a brother or a sister for paperwork feels like an accusation, which is most of the reason people sit on it for months. If you are the one holding the paperwork and you have fallen behind, that is a fixable problem too. When you're ready to get it on paper, our team at Laurel Trust Law can help.