Hi.
I’m Reed Bloodworth founding partner of Bloodworth Law.
Today I’m going to take a moment to discuss trust litigation.
Well the first issue we should address is what is a trust?
A trust is a legal creation whose purpose is to hold assets for beneficiaries.
A trust is controlled by a trustee.
There are many types of trust.
Some of the more common types are revocable trust irrevocable trust.
Revocable trust means that the grantor the person who is putting the assets into the
trust controls the trust and controls those assets for his or her lifetime.
An irrevocable trust the grantor puts items into the trust but relinquishes control of
those assets and the trustee will manage those assets for however long the trust is designated
to last.
Trusts are very beneficial in terms of estate planning.
Items that are in trusts avoid probate.
Probate can be lengthy it can be expensive and trusts are a way that lawyers avoid that
process for certain assets.
Probate litigation arises in a multitude of fashions.
Some of the more common types of probate litigation
involve beneficiaries who believe they were improperly left out of a trust or perhaps
a trust was amended and certain beneficiaries were left out some were added and their disputes
arise.
So for example let’s say a father has two children.
He had a trust and the two children were the equal beneficiaries of the assets in that
trust.
However later in life the father remarries.
The father is somewhat weak perhaps he’s sick or perhaps he suffers from dementia or
Alzheimer’s.
And the stepmother takes father to an attorney and he has or she has the father create an
amendment to the trust removing his biological children as beneficiaries adding herself or
adding herself and her children.
This is a very common occurrence in terms of trust litigation.
In this situation the biological children may bring an action against the trustee to
have it set aside for multiple reasons.
It could be lack of capacity it could be undue influence it could be tortious interference
with a testamentary expectancy.
Some other causes of action pertaining to the trust litigation in that context may include
an accounting because the beneficiaries or would be beneficiaries want to know where
did the assets go and the trustee’s duty is to supply accounting to the trustees or
to the beneficiaries excuse me.
So in that scenario I and my law firm would represent either the trustees in defending
a lawsuit brought by beneficiaries or could represent the beneficiaries bringing the suit
against the trustees.
This is just a common scenario for trust litigation.
It involves obviously trusts.
It involves parties related to the trust to people that have interests in the trust.
So at Bloodworth Law we represent beneficiaries and trustees.
We represent them both as plaintiffs and defendants.
Again my name’s Reed Bloodworth the founding partner of Bloodworth Law.
Give me a call.
Let’s talk about what happened to you.