At the end of the administration of a trust, the title company required the trustee to open a probate and obtain letters of personal representative before closing. This is the second matter in as many months where DeAngelis Legal has had to deal with simple mistakes that caused significant delays and additional expenses in trust administration. For the first two mistakes see May 2023 Formal Probate Project. Here, DeAngelis Legal reviewed the estate plan and title and determined that even though the decedent fully funded his trust at the time of creation, prior to his death he transferred the property into his personal name to refinance the residence and failed to transfer it back into the name of the trust (mistake #3). To make matters worse, the will did not name a successor trustee (mistake #4) so when the named personal representative declined to serve, a person who was disinherited under the trust had equal priority to appointment as personal representative! DeAngelis Legal was able to open an informal probate quickly on the basis that the trust, as the primary beneficiary, had priority over the person and was able to nominate the trustee as personal representative. Two more lessons learned in this matter: #3 if you move assets out of your revocable trust, put them back in and #4 always name one or two successors under your documents.
