Trust Management / Private Trustee Services

While most people will designate a family member such as a spouse, adult child, siblings or other close relative to serve as successor trustee of a trust that is created on behalf of an individual by an attorney licensed in the state of jurisdiction. The majority of states within the United States as per state banking law require an individual to serve in the cases of a private trustee. There are several circumstances that might necessitate the need to appoint an unrelated party to serve as trustee including:

There are no close family members to designate, or the grantor of the trust does not feel that any family members have the skill, or aptitude or willingness to effectively administer the trust
The grantor wants to avoid creating the potential for conflict among their family members or restrict certain rights of the settlor which arise when the designated trustee is also a beneficiary of the trust
The responsibilities of administering a trust, particularly a complex trust, might be too overwhelming for an elderly spouse or an adult child with full-time job and personal family responsibilities

GFSLLC Simplifies Estate Administration

For those individuals choosing to appoint a professional trustee, they can appoint a private professional fiduciary. The benefits of appointing Select Fiduciary as your private fiduciary are as follows:

We don’t have the inherent potential for conflicts of interest that might arise with an attorney, CPA, or investment advisor who is providing other professional services to the trust
We offer greater flexibility and independence and fewer limitations in carrying out the provisions of the trust agreement than an institutional trustee might have, particularly when it comes to managing, investing, and continuing to own the trust assets
We spend the time to get to know you and our principals personally administer the trust according to your wishes and instructions as opposed to having a paralegal or junior trust officer whom you have never met administering your trust.

As your private trustee, some services we provide include:

Marshalling and creating an inventory of all trust assets including all accounts and real and personal property and ensuring that they are held in the appropriate trust name

There is limited conflict of interest as there is with making a financial institution one’s trustee whereby, they invest in their own company’s institutional stock portfolio that increases their own companies net worth and is not to any benefit of the individual trust. Plus, there is an inherit conflict of interest that these and any other financial institution limits expenditures for their own benefit of maintain funds to take their own fees from. Additionally, the company gets a credit back or a discounted rate for increased investment into their own portfolio from the stock or bond provider that they are investing in. This applies to every organization or individual as a trustee, so ones need to get to know their trustee and trust that they will do what is in the best interest of the beneficiary rather that their own organization.

Making all the required notifications to interested parties and establishing lines of communication
Dividing the trust assets into the appropriate trusts as designated in the trust document
Setting up all appropriate records and accounting procedures required to document trust activity
Assembling a professional advisory team required to carry out all the provisions of the trust including legal and accounting requirements and property management services if appropriate
Making sure all required tax returns are filed including estate taxes if appropriate
Communicating with all beneficiaries and creditors of the estate and treating them impartially and with respect
Making sure assets of the trust(s) are prudently invested to best meet the desired benchmarks of the trust for income and growth for the beneficiaries
Providing an annual accounting of the trust activity to the designated beneficiaries
Winding up the trust and distributing assets to the designated beneficiaries as provided for in the trust document