Nobody wants to have to deal with a trustee who has been mismanaging trust funds and breaching their fiduciary duties. It quite a time consuming and costly process to litigate a trustee under these circumstances. And there could also be quite a secondary blow to the trust funds, as it is possible a contested trustee can use the trust assets to pay for his or her attorney fees. This can be a very shocking revelation to the beneficiaries. After all, why should money have to come out of your pocket to pay for someone that you are fighting against? This is just how it is sometimes. And unfortunately during litigation a trustee with access to the trust funds can and will use the money in the trust to fight back against you.
However, there are more and more recent cases where courts have said that certain litigation expenses need to be paid back to the trust when the litigation is in the benefit of the individual trustee and not the trust as a whole.
For more information on how the process of litigating against a trustee that is suspected of breach of fiduciary duty, please contact a professional Estate Administration Attorney before proceeding.
*This blog entry was not written by an Attorney and should not be constituted as professional legal advice.