You’re the Trustee Now: Your First 90 Days

Your parent has died, and the trust names you as successor trustee. The first 90 days decide most of what follows.

You’re the Trustee Now is a plain-English guide for the son, daughter or relative who just took over a parent’s living trust in California. It’s written by a California attorney whose practice emphasizes estate planning, trust administration and probate, and it follows the order a trustee meets the work.

What’s inside

• The first week. What a successor trustee controls, what to protect, and what not to touch yet.
• Accepting the role. Saying yes or no, co-trustees, and the certification of trust that banks and title companies ask for.
• Reading the trust. Who’s who, specific gifts, and what the document tells you to do.
• The trustee’s notice. Who gets it, what it has to say, and the contest window it starts.
• The tax number and the account. Getting the trust its own EIN and running every dollar through one account.
• Finding and securing the assets. Where her accounts hide, what belongs to the trust, and what to insure and lock up.
• Values, property tax and creditors. Date-of-death values, the assessor’s filing, final bills and the optional creditor process.
• Tax returns. Her final returns and the trust’s first ones, and what to hand the CPA.
• Your duties. Loyalty, impartiality, keeping trust money separate, keeping beneficiaries informed, and the records an accounting needs.
• Getting paid, and getting help. Trustee compensation, the mistakes that turn into lawsuits, and when to call a lawyer, a CPA or the court.

Every dollar example is labeled as an illustration and shows its arithmetic. Every rule is tied to its source in the California codes or the federal tax law. The back of the book has checklists, worksheets, a glossary and a page of this year’s deadlines and figures.

This book is general information about California law. It isn’t legal, tax, investment or financial advice. The families in it are composites.

Read the free guide first

• Successor trustee duties in California
• Successor trustee timeline generator
• The trustee’s duty to inform and account

More books: when someone dies

• The First 30 Days After a DeathComing soon
• Mom Died and the House Is Still in Her NameComing soon
• Selling a House Through ProbateComing soon