What are your duties as trustee of a trust?

As the trustee of a trust administered in Arizona, you will have numerous powers and duties. I will review some of a trustee’s duties in this and future blog posts. If the Trust was written under the laws of another state, you may still be able to administer the Trust under Arizona laws if the trustor died while living in Arizona, depending on how the Trust was written and executed.

Duty to Administer the Trust

As successor trustee, it is your duty to administer the Trust in accordance with the terms of the Trust and Arizona statutes. This involves many of the same steps as a probate. As trustee, you have a duty to do the following after the final trustor dies – not necessarily in this order:

Control and Protect Trust Assets

This means to figure out everything the trustor owned when he/she died and to protect those assets. That may include ensuring that assets such as houses and cars continue to be protected by insurance until they are distributed to beneficiaries or sold. It may mean rekeying a house to ensure that you have control over access to the property.

You may need to retitle some of the assets, keeping them in the name of the Trust, but now listing yourself as successor trustee. You may need to open an account in the name of the Trust, listing you as successor trustee, so that you can deposit trust monies into this account for future distribution. To open this account, you will need a new Certification of Trust and a Trust EIN/TIN from the IRS. Arizona Probate, LLC can assist with this. If hired for a trust administration, Arizona Probate, LLC will assist the trustee from the beginning to the end of the trust administration. See our Services page for details.

Assets Not Titled in Name of Trust

There may be some assets that the trustor failed to title in the name of the Trust. If the trustor had a pour over will with you listed as the personal representative, then you will most likely have to file for probate of the will to “pour” those assets into the Trust for you to distribute according to the terms of the Trust as well. Arizona Probate, LLC can assist with these sorts of informal probates as well.