Beneficiary Rights Attorney in Newbury Park

Beneficiary Rights Attorney in Newbury Park

Newbury Park is part of the City of Thousand Oaks, and the planning here follows a Conejo Valley pattern: two children, both trusted equally, both named as co-trustees so neither feels passed over. It reads as fair on the day the trust is signed.

It is also the single most common reason a Newbury Park administration stops moving, and beneficiaries usually misdiagnose what has gone wrong.

My work for beneficiaries is trust administration and negotiated resolution, and a petition to the probate court when talking doesn’t settle it. Will and trust contests, and anything headed to trial, I refer to litigation counsel.

Two co-trustees means either one can stop everything

§ 15620 is the default rule: where a trust has more than one trustee, they must act unanimously unless the instrument provides otherwise. Many trusts do provide otherwise, allowing a majority or giving one trustee authority to act alone. Many do not, and the drafting is often accidental rather than considered.

Where unanimity applies, one co-trustee who will not sign is enough to halt a sale, a distribution, or the funding of a subtrust indefinitely. No dishonesty is required. A co-trustee who simply disagrees, or who has stopped answering, produces the same paralysis as one acting in bad faith.

This matters for what you ask for. A beneficiary who files demanding an accounting from a deadlocked pair usually gets an accounting and no movement, because the accounting was never the problem. What breaks a deadlock is a petition for instructions, or removal of one trustee, and those ask the court for something different.

What you file	What it asks the court to do	Does it break a deadlock?
Accounting petition	Order an account from the trustees	Usually not, because the accounting was never the problem
Petition for instructions	Decide the specific question the co-trustees are stuck on	Yes, the narrower route
Removal petition under Prob. Code § 15642	Take one of the co-trustees out	Yes, the deadlock remedy

Working out whether it is deadlock or something worse

Start with information rather than accusation. § 16060 requires the trustee to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed of the trust and its administration, and § 16061 requires a report of information relevant to your interest on reasonable request. Directed at both co-trustees separately, those requests tend to surface the disagreement quickly, because two people who are stuck rarely give the same answer.

§ 16062(a) is the accounting duty and it runs to beneficiaries currently entitled to income or principal. Note that in a co-trustee trust the accounting duty is joint. Neither trustee gets to point at the other and treat the obligation as somebody else’s.

If the trust document does permit majority or independent action, the analysis changes completely, because then one trustee’s refusal is not blocking anything and the delay has a different cause. Read the trustee-powers article before assuming § 15620 applies.

What has to happen before a court will order an accounting

§ 17200(b)(7)(C) requires that the trustee failed to submit a requested account within 60 days after your written request and that no account was made in the six months preceding that request. Both, not either. § 17200(b)(7)(B) applies the same structure to information.

Serve the request on both co-trustees and keep proof of both. A co-trustee who never received the request is a defense, and it is an easy one to avoid handing over.

Where a Newbury Park trust petition is heard

Ventura County hears probate, trust, conservatorship and guardianship matters at the Juvenile Justice Center, 4353 E. Vineyard Avenue in Oxnard, usually Courtroom J6.

If a petition becomes necessary, § 17203 requires at least 30 days’ notice of the hearing to all trustees and beneficiaries. In a deadlock that notice period is often the thing that produces a resolution, because a co-trustee who would not answer a letter tends to answer a hearing date.

What the trustee can charge, and the probate schedule as a yardstick

If the trust doesn’t say what the trustee is paid, the trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation under the circumstances (Prob. Code § 15681). That’s a flexible standard, and a deadlocked administration makes it matter, because a trustee who isn’t moving the file can still be billing for it.

A benchmark helps. On the Zillow Home Value Index for August 2026, the typical home in the Newbury Park neighborhood of Thousand Oaks is worth $1,011,176. The probate fee schedule in Prob. Code §§ 10800 and 10810 would allow the executor and the attorney each $23,112 on that value, or $46,224 together.

Slice of the estate	Rate	Fee for each of the executor and the attorney
First $100,000	4%	$4,000
Next $100,000	3%	$3,000
Next $800,000	2%	$16,000
Remaining $11,176	1%	$112
Total, each		$23,112

The schedule doesn’t govern a trust, and the figures assume an estate of only the typical home, figured on gross value with no deduction for a mortgage (§ 10810(b)). Use the number as a comparison and not as a limit. When a trustee’s fee lands far above it, ask what work justified the difference. Trustee compensation in California covers what counts as reasonable.

The clocks that run while the co-trustees argue

Three deadlines matter to a Newbury Park beneficiary, and a deadlock doesn’t pause any of them. The first is the trustee’s. When a revocable trust becomes irrevocable at a death, the trustee must serve notice on each beneficiary and heir within 60 days (Prob. Code § 16061.7). Either co-trustee can serve it, and the duty belongs to both.

The second is yours, and it’s short. Once you’re served, you can’t bring an action to contest the trust more than 120 days after service, or 60 days after a copy of the trust’s terms is delivered to you during that period, whichever is later (§ 16061.8). What to do when you receive the notice walks through it.

The third covers claims against a trustee for breach of trust. A claim is barred three years after you receive a written account or report that adequately discloses it. If you never receive one, it’s barred three years after you discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the claim (§ 16460). A contest or a surcharge fight needs litigation counsel, and I’ll tell you so at the start. What I do is read the notice, the trust, and the accounts with you so you know which clock you’re on.

Selling the Newbury Park house when two trustees have to sign

Where the trust doesn’t provide otherwise, a power held by two trustees can be exercised only by both (§ 15620). A sale is one of those powers. The title company will also want a certification of trust, and § 18100.5(c) requires it to be signed by all the currently acting trustees. The certification also has to say whether all or fewer than all trustees must sign for each power (§ 18100.5(b)(5)). A holdout blocks the sale twice, once as a trustee and once on the paperwork.

A signed certification can be recorded with the Ventura County Clerk-Recorder, whose main office is in the Hall of Administration at 800 S. Victoria Ave. in Ventura. Once it’s recorded, anyone can see who the trustees are and what signature authority they claim. If one trustee refuses to sign a certification for a sale the other trustee thinks the trust requires, that refusal is the fact to put in front of a court. Certification of trust in California and selling trust property without beneficiary approval cover the rest.

Questions Newbury Park beneficiaries ask

Both my siblings are trustees and neither will move. What do I actually file?

Probably not an accounting petition. If § 15620 unanimity applies and one will not sign, an accounting will not unstick it. A petition for instructions asks the court to decide the specific question they are stuck on. A removal petition under § 15642 asks it to take one of them out. Which one fits depends on why they are stuck.

Does the trust say they have to agree?

§ 15620 makes unanimity the default where there is more than one trustee, but the instrument can and often does override it. Find the trustee-powers article and read it before assuming. If it allows majority or independent action, one holdout is not the obstacle you think it is.

One co-trustee is doing all the work and the other has vanished. Is that a breach?

A trustee who has stopped participating is a problem even without bad faith, and where unanimity applies an absent trustee is functionally blocking the trust. Resignation or removal are the clean routes. The accounting duty stays joint in the meantime, so the working trustee cannot treat the absence as an excuse.

Can I make them account separately?

The duty under § 16062 is owed by the trustees, and in practice one account covering the administration is what gets produced. What you can do is direct your written request to each of them, which removes any argument later that one never got it.

Can a court just pick one of them and let the trust move?

Effectively, yes. Removal under § 15642 is the deadlock remedy, and a petition for instructions is the narrower version where the court decides the one question they are stuck on rather than replacing anybody. The § 16420 remedies are still there if the delay itself caused a loss, and a removal petition filed in bad faith, against the settlor’s intent, can cost the petitioner fees under § 15642(d).

Can my brother pay himself from the trust while we’re deadlocked?

If the trust sets compensation, he follows it. If it’s silent, he’s entitled to reasonable compensation under the circumstances (Prob. Code § 15681). The probate fee schedule doesn’t apply to a trust, but on a $1,011,176 home it would allow $23,112 to each of the executor and the attorney, which is a fair comparison point. Ask for the number in writing.

How long do I have to object after I get the trust notice?

To contest the trust itself, no more than 120 days after the notice is served on you, or 60 days after a copy of the trust’s terms is delivered to you in that period, whichever is later (§ 16061.8). Claims against a trustee for breach run on a separate three-year clock under § 16460. If you’re near either date, talk to litigation counsel now.

Can a title company close a sale with only one trustee’s signature?

Not on the default rule. Two trustees act unanimously unless the trust says otherwise (§ 15620), and a certification of trust has to be signed by all currently acting trustees (§ 18100.5(c)). If the trust lets one trustee act alone, the certification says so, and that trustee can sign.