A trustee is bound by the terms of the trust and their fiduciary duty to administer a trust, in accordance with the law and for the benefit of trust beneficiaries. At the same time, even when the law is clear, life’s complexities often make trustee’s decisions far from obvious.

• The trust’s lifetime beneficiary wishes to keep the trust-owned family business, while the contingent remainder beneficiaries wish to sell it while the market is high.
• A trust-owned business qualified for the IRC 6166 election, but no longer does; the surviving spouse wants to sell the business and business-owned real estate and to buy fixed income, while the remainder beneficiaries wish for the trustee to pursue a 1031 strategy
• A GST trust’s inclusion ratio changed, unbeknownst to remainder beneficiaries, due to additional assets contributed to the trust by the income beneficiary, resulting in a new mix of assets and substantial tax consequences, unexpected by all.

We advise fiduciaries statewide in trust administration, protecting trustees and executors from liability, while keeping an eye on optimal wealth transfer solutions for beneficiaries and seeking to minimize litigation risks. If contested matters, we vigorously advocate for our clients’ interests, while also making certain that all legal requirements of the administration