Leveraging Inter Vivos Trust Petitions to Avoid Post-Death Trust Contests

What questions should an attorney ask before hiring someone to prepare a client’s fiduciary accounting? What are the indicia of a poorly prepared accounting? Are waivers of account ever a good idea? Should the trust document routinely waive accountings?  Ever? Is there anything a trustee’s attorney can do to shorten the statute of limitations on breaches of trust disclosed in an accounting?

Icicles on the Heart:
 The Effect of Advising a Client/Trustee with Uncertain Capabilities and Toward a Fiduciary Standard of Capacity

California law has long recognized a settlor’s right to restrict a beneficiary’s use of trust assets. Restraints on alienation, spendthrift clauses, shutdown clauses and wholly discretionary trusts are a few of the tools settlors may use when creating a trust for the benefit of someone likely to have creditor problems.