Submitted by DanH on Wed, 11/10/2010 - 09:24
Posted in
I'm going in to talk to an estate planning attorney next week about setting up a trust. I'm a single man with no living family, other than two cousins that I intend to name as beneficiaries and one aunt that I want to name as trustee. My question is about the duties of the trustee. I don't want to overburden my aunt, so I assume I can put it in the trust that she can delegate some of her duties to professionals, like lawyers and accountants? Is that the case under Massachusetts law? Thanks.
Delegation of Trustee Duties
A trustee should be chosen who has some basic ability to fairly and competently carry out the trust purposes and to keep appropriate records. However, in the case of a trustee without sufficient expertise, the trust can and should give the trustee the powers necessary to consult appropriate professionals for purposes of doing things like fiing tax returns. The trustee is always, of course, subject to scrutiny by interested parties for abuse or misuse of trust assets for this or any other purpose.
Attorney Christine J. Benway