"Trust Us" to educate the family on Trusts and Wills before a legacy is destroyed.
The Story
September 2017, we planned a family destination celebrating mother-in-law's 86th birthday. Family dinners, poolside chats and hearing mom talk about her past stories. 3 months later and 8 days before Christmas my mother-in-law suddenly passed away. 5 months after her passing away my husband's siblings and niece and nephews refused to even speak to me as we laid her to rest with my father-in-law in Arlington National Cemetery. He was the trustee of a $2 million dollar trust. My husband had legal and fiduciary responsibility to execute the trust according to the law. Personal feelings that were harbored years ago created a broken family that will never be repaired. Within 5 months my husband have no family left. Nobody to share family memories with.
Fifteen years earlier my husbands parents gathered with his siblings for a dinner. The father brought out a maroon leather binder and said this is the trust when mom and him are gone. The attorney has outlined everything that we want to be done so you don't have to worry about anything, he said . They announced that they decided my husband was appointed the trustee and that the binder would be in their safe. There was a discussion of personal belongings wish list and that was it. Nothing was formally attached to the Trust. Of course you don't want to lose your parents or even think about it and feel even discussing it with them. You feel uncomfortable discussing what will happen when they are gone. When he left that night, no one knew what the trust was about, what was involved or what were the responsibilities of the trustee and beneficiaries. Just that it is in the safe.
My husband's siblings said nothing over the 15 years on how they really felt about him being named trustee or what they felt about him as a person. No discussion was brought up about the trust ever. His dad passed away 5 years after that dinner discussion. His mom lived another 10 years and still nothing was discussed by his mom or the siblings. Once my husband was named trustee, nobody understood what that meant or how anything was going to be executed. You grow up with different values, beliefs and experiences. Your siblings add their spouses to the mix and their own life and personal and business experiences that create a perception on how they feel the trust should be executed. Past personal feelings override the responsibilities of the law of the trust to the point of each of my husband's sibling retained an attorney.
While the trust funds deteriorate over personal squabbles of past feelings of trust, you reflect on what went wrong. That dinner of not asking and understanding the trust could have prevented a broken family that is beyond repair.
We hear these stories all the time from around the world. Many do not realize executing a trust is like running a business. So picture your in a business with your siblings. Do you see any challenges with personalities? It is a taunting unrewarding task that leaves you little time to grieve. It puts you in situations that you and the beneficiaries are not used to. It requires a lot time above your normal life schedule. You have to make decisions that on real estate, bills, credit cards, passwords, mail, portfolios and continually questioning the CPA and attorneys as you can't trust anyone.
To give you an estimate of handling of my husbands Trust has required over 700 documented hours in 1 year.
EXPERIENCE
-
Owner of 5 multi-million dollar businesses (all accounting and paperwork side)
-
Experience in audits state and federal
-
Experience in booking-keeping and accounting
-
Networking capabilities to connect to professional services
-
Experience with International properties
-
Experienced in executing several Trusts