If you’re a trust beneficiary in California, you need to know your rights. As a trust beneficiary, you’re entitled to receive a regular distribution from funds designated to you under the rules of the trust. The trustee, the person who is in charge of administering that trust, has a legal duty toward you, the beneficiary. The trustee has the responsibility to inform you of the status of the trust and ensure that you receive your full share of distributions from a trust on time and in the right amount. Above all, a trustee is called to be fair and ethical in managing trust assets. When a trustee isn’t fair to beneficiaries, that means beneficiaries are being abused. For protection from further abuse and in order to get rightful dist[...]

Are you about to challenge or contest a trust in a Superior Court in California? Whether you are filing in Sacramento, Los Angeles, Alameda, Santa Clara or Orange, then you should consider your battle plan. Have you retained a California trust attorney and opened the case? Before you get started, here are five things that you might consider. Statutes of Limitation.If a beneficiary receives a trustee notice, they may have as little as 120 days in California on filing certain kinds of claims against a will or trust (CA Probate Code 16061.7). California courts do not favor those who delay. If you can “smell the coffee” and see that something is wrong, you may want to engage a lawyer and start making an effort at securing your rights. [...]

There are a variety of creditors that seek to enforce money judgments against California trust beneficiaries (beneficiaries who are also judgment debtors). California has a number of laws that identify what limits, if any, apply to the enforcement of these judgments. California’s counties generally have a Department of Child Support Services. The department’s Mission Statement often defines the general goal for such departments. As an example: “The mission of the Santa Clara County Department of Child Support Services is to promote the well-being of children and the self-sufficiency of families by delivering effective child support services to help meet the financial and medical needs of children.” These departments make ev[...]

Hackard Law regularly assists trustees and beneficiaries in disputes where breach of trust and breach of fiduciary duties are alleged against a trustee or co-trustee by a trust beneficiary. The question that is often asked concerns what statutory remedies for a trustee or co-trustee’s breach of trust apply in California probate courts? The following statute applies whether the case is in Sacramento County Probate Court, El Dorado County Probate Court, Placer County Probate Court, and Alameda County Probate Court or in any of the other 54 counties in California. Probate Code Section 16420. (a) If a trustee commits a breach of trust, or threatens to commit a breach of trust, a beneficiary or cotrustee of the trust may commence a proce[...]

Over years of litigating probate, trust and estate battles, our clients frequently ask the question: Do many families go through estate battles like the one we are experiencing? What first comes to our mind, as a response to the inquiry is Leo Tolstoy’s observation from Anna Karenina: “All happy families are alike; each unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.” Estate litigation battles, often outgrowths of unhappy families, have their own distinctive troubles. That said, the more estate battles we see, the more certain prevalent patterns become evident. We represent people who challenge the wrongdoing of others in estate-related matters. Familiar grounds of challenge often arise from undue influence and financial elder abuse a[...]