Full question:
My father set up a trust leaving the farm to all of his living children and their descendts at the time of his death, my oldest brother was the trustee, this has been about fifteen years, my brother became ill, he tried to appoint a successor trustee without a vote of all the benefactors vote. He was told by his attorney at that time he could not do that without a vote. So rather then let us vote, he decided that he would sell the farm. I had to hire an attorney get a TRO, to stop it. We thought that with him spending money from the trust to hire attorney to do paper work to sell the farm, drawn up an abstract were all against what the trust said. this went on for over a year the judge finally handed down the judgment that we would all have to pay are own attorney fee's, and the trust would be paid back the legal fee's,sale bill fee, abstract and title fees. My brother died, he had cleaned out the checking account for the trust. And the courts states he has no personal estate. It took from April 1st,09 till after his death before we got the actual notice. Is there nothing we can do about any of this. Please advise.
- Category: Trusts
- Date:
- State: Missouri
Answer:
If a court has ruled that your brother has no estate (no land, no money, no property of any kind - no car, etc, which is hard to believe) then you have nothing to claim against and can recover nothing. It is unclear what you are entitled to recover since the judge ruled you were responsible for your own attorney fees during the litigation. You mention his cleaning out of the checking account, and perhaps the trust (not you, unless the trust has been dissolved) could recover that if it was done wrongfully. If a trust company was involved in any of this, it is possible you could sue them for some failure on their part in monitoring your brother - but this seems unlikely if your brother was the trustee.
There is no obvious recourse for you based on what you've told me. However I encourage you to consult with a local attorney. It is possible that after meeting with a local attorney and having a full interview, showing all related documents, etc., something more may come to light.
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