Trust management firms fail to respond to inquiries
12 posts across 6 communities in the last 90 days; 33% from r/personalfinance.
“I can't seem to find recent feedback from people who have used Vanguard National Trust Company to manage a trust. VNTC leads with competitive pricing, but there are some complications (like changing Trust situs to Pennsylvania). If anyone has a recent experience, it would be…”
“honestly just exhausted trying to explain cold storage and multisig to 60-year-old lawyers. We crossed our Chubby number last month (~$3.9M NW) and are trying to finalize our living trust before I drop down to part-time. the problem is a decent chunk of our portfolio is in…”
“They’re arguing over how to title two inherited IRAs. One belonged to my wife’s mom, the other she inherited from my wife’s dad(her dad died like 8 years ago) creating a successor-beneficiary issue. The trustee wants both decedents named. The attorneys say the brokerage records…”
Several users report difficulty getting responses from their trust management firms or trustees. This includes issues with Schwab not responding and delays in addressing account changes, leading to frustration and a search for alternative providers.
SOURCES (32)
“Might be best to shop around different estate lawyers $5k sounds a bit steep and if you have $2m of assets it might be worth looking into. [re: Trusts, worth it or not?]”
“I dare say UHNW a) isn't at 10mm, and b) UHNW individuals almost certainly aren't using the base JPM Private Bank with the listed charges.”
“I can't seem to find recent feedback from people who have used Vanguard National Trust Company to manage a trust. VNTC leads with competitive pricing, but there are some complications (like changing Trust situs to Pennsylvania). If anyone has a recent experience, it would be great to hear.. I tried searching r/Bogleheads but came up empty. I also looked at r/EstatePlanning but there nothing recent submitted by /u/havingfunismyreason [link] [comments]”
“You probably want to find a fiduciary. There are fiduciaries who do not manage assets, but they can be hard to find and you'll still have to pay them some kind of annual fee. Keep in mind that the trustee must follow the rules of the trust in determining when to make distributions. Delegating to a fiduciary keeps you from being the "bad guy" who has to say no to your parents, but it also means they might make distributions that you don't agree with if they follow the rules of t”
“honestly just exhausted trying to explain cold storage and multisig to 60-year-old lawyers. We crossed our Chubby number last month (~$3.9M NW) and are trying to finalize our living trust before I drop down to part-time. the problem is a decent chunk of our portfolio is in eth/btc from 2018. every local attorney I talk to either gives me a blank stare or tries to charge some ridiculous "complex asset" fee for a boilerplate trust that completely ignores how self-custody actually works i”
“OP never mentions If the trust has been updated to make them co-trustee if it hasn’t then his mom would need to resign as trustee for him to take over as trustee. Are there actual assets in the name of the trust? Property, investment accounts? Or is it just her checking? Seems OP left out important information for a life story.”
“what are the PTPs that the trust is holding? I own a few oddball ptps so I might be able to help.”
“I am a trusts & estates attorney but not yours. Speak with an attorney. Most revocable trusts I’ve encountered (the overwhelming majority but not all) talk about paying and providing for the decedent’s liabilities. The premise here - that a RLT is prevented from doing so - is quite unlikely.”
“I don’t believe they did in any fiduciary sense. The trustee was a chauvinistic asshole and a terrible communicator because he had no incentive to do better. They weren’t doing anything shady though.”
“she didn’t tell me about this until recently, if she spent it i would doubt that she would have ever brought this up to me at all. I thought about the paperwork part but we’ve moved countless times and maybe it got lost somewhere along the way.”
“Wow thanks for sharing would love to hear about some of the unintended consequences. Did you ever find in five generations a need to switch trustees firm was that a fight?”
“I also understand that the trust belongs to my wife. I’m not claiming otherwise. But roughly half of it consists of inherited IRAs that must be distributed over the applicable 10-year period. Those distributions create household cash flow, tax consequences, and decisions about where the proceeds are held and invested. The trust’s administration therefore materially affects our household while my wife, even though the trust assets are legally hers”
“you’re conflating two different issues. I agree that the current trustee’s lawyers represent the trustee, not my wife personally. That’s precisely why we’re looking at replacing the current trustee. We reached out to a law firm because they are ACTEC Fellows and serve as professional trustees. Their response was that they first provide legal services regarding the trustee succession plan and, if appropriate, one of their lawyers may then serve as the successor trustee. They also noted that they”
“No, and your post proves you still don’t get it. She doesn’t have a legal team. The trust and trustee has a legal team. That lawyer doesn’t represent your wife, they represent the trustee. She needs someone to represent her. Further, this new lawyer you say you’ve found can’t do both. They can either be her lawyer, or be the professional trustee. Trying to do both is a conflict. Also, you still seem to not understand the differences between marital and separate assets, since even your analogies”
“Did you just cherry pick the parts of the post you wanted to judge on? My wife asked me for this help… her mom died. Her dad died earlier. It’s called being married (perhaps you’re not married so you don’t understand how a marriage actually works… TL;DR it involves working as a team instead of selfishness). My income is her income too, not just mine. I’m not a selfish child and neither is she. The wealth we’ve built together is for our household and common goals. We have a legal team, as indicat”
“She should hire a trusts and estates attorney to review the trust and the discuss her options with her. You should also stop referring to this money as “ours”, etc. It’s hers.”
“There are a couple of alternative solutions that you may not have looked at. One is simply to distribute the funds outright. Look at the trust and see what the provisions are for that. This is the simplest if you do not expect to have a taxable estate. If you do expect to have a taxable estate the thing to look at is whether it would be possible to partition the trust into two equal trusts, with your wife and her brother their own trustees. The trusts would have some limitations on their trustee”
“Correct, he’s not a corporate trustee, he’s her mom’s friend, CPA and financial advisor (though idk his credentials for the later, I think he informally advised her) As protector, it looks like she can remove him (though it’s not clear if she may need her uncle to approve as I believe he is also a protector, but also not sure because she exceeded the age requirement of 30 listed in the trust). The one caveat is the trust states that whoever is appointed as a professional or corporate trustee, th”
“Often trust protectors get ability to alter trust in limited ways. We gave trust protectors the ability to remove/add new trustees. Wife should get another lawyer to see what her options are. A cheap way would be to sign up for a "prepaid lawyer" and have them review it. I wouldn't be quick to sue because trusts almost universally allow them to hire lawyers to defend themselves and it'll make the trustee even more combative and you're effectively hiring lawyers to fight ano”
“I don't think the guy is a corporate trustee otherwise OP could probably could get the company to replace him, additionally there's no way a corporate trustee would allow for a highly concentrated portfolio (unless the trust required it). It sounds like he's a "co-trustee." Assuming he's not a corporate nor professional trustee I'd be surprised if the trust required a corporate trustee. Maybe professional, but likely just "independent." A simple way to mee”
“I think if the funds remain in the trust then there might not be a 10y stretch and then pretty much everything would be taxed at 37%! My guess is that the profits and RMDs of the trust are being distributed to the wife and BiL where it's taxed. If there's any "retained" (e.g. non-distrusted assets) income, profits, or pre-tax retirement distributions then that is taxed at trust rates. An example of "retained" income is if there was a large NVDA position that was sold”
“Is there any way to keep the IRA funds after withdrawal inside the trust (trust would still need to pay tax, which may be at just as bad/worse rates)? Or even if the trust is the beneficiary, it needs to distribute to its beneficiaries? If you have kids, you may (probably) want some trusts for all of your joint assets anyways. Before then, I don't see the big difference, other than making it joint property?”
“They’re arguing over how to title two inherited IRAs. One belonged to my wife’s mom, the other she inherited from my wife’s dad(her dad died like 8 years ago) creating a successor-beneficiary issue. The trustee wants both decedents named. The attorneys say the brokerage records that contain the Ira are enough”
“What points are they arguing. You are in for a fight these trustees are shady sometimes.”
“The phrase to look for in the trust document is "corporate trustee" and if that position is required or optional. If optional, the named trustees (wife & her brother, I'm assuming?) should be able to take direct control of the investments, change the brokerage where the investments are held, etc. To confirm, the person currently taking the 1% fee is a broker, banker, or investment advisor, and is identified as a "corporate trustee" in the trust document?”
“So we found the current trustee invested only in like 10 stocks, 90% in tech and ~48% in Google alone… I had to advise my wife to ask him for the holdings after his brag about “40% returns last year” made me raise an eyebrow. Then he was apparently running into issues with the lawyers that drafted the trust. He does have a CPA but he’s so over his head. It’s not even just the 1% fee, it’s everything. He’s a nice family friend but holy crap, I don’t he’s equipped to manage this in general”
“No you get your own estate lawyer. That was your MIL lawyer. Not to mention, age is definitely a factor. Our concerns over this were met this year with the untimely death of my parents lawyer. Finding another will be a pain and we needed one last change now that she's been diagnosed with Alzheimer's. We make aging very complicated.”