Do You Need to Hire an Attorney for Trust Administration?

Maybe you are involved in a trust administration proceeding. You might have created a revocable trust and wonder what you need to do to maintain it during your life. Perhaps you and your spouse created a trust, and you wonder what needs to be done now that your spouse has become incapacitated. Or maybe you are named as successor trustee and the original trustee has died. So do you need to hire an attorney in each of those situations? Or can you handle trust administration on your own? Our online mantra: we are Arizona attorneys and can’t give you advice about your duties or abilities in other states. You should get local and particular advice about your situation and circumstances. But we can generalize about some of the issues — and difficulties. First, some reassurance: you probably do not need any regular or active advice about administering the revocable trust you created. Of course you should check in with your attorney periodically to see what has changed. That can include changes in the law and (more often) changes in your circumstances. But what about administering a trust after the death of the settlor? That can be trickier. At least under Arizona law, there are a number of things that you are supposed to do when you take over. And there are more items to cover to satisfy federal tax authorities. Your duties as trustee are specific, sometimes technical and often non-intuitive. So you are probably well-advised to, well, seek advice. Trust administration is not especially easy, but a qualified attorney will probably provide more benefits than the (usually modest) cost.