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Trust Litigation Lawyers: Updating And Dissolving

1 December 2020 by Louise Boyd

A legal trust is designed to protect assets and preserve wealth between generations. Whether you're the benefactor or beneficiary of a trust, snags can arise that require legal litigation to untangle. Here are just some of the situations that might require the aid of trust litigation lawyers.

Updating a Living Trust

Making changes to a living trust can have unintended consequences. Regardless of the changes you intend to make to a living trust, you need to ensure that the document is clear and legally sound.

• Changing the Terms: Changing how a trust is distributed and managed are among the most common modifications to living trusts. For instance, you might request that the trust be managed with a new investment strategy. If this involves changing the legal conservatorship, you'll need to create an addendum to the existing living trust. In order for the legal conservatorship to be formally changed, the living trust's existing conservator(s) will need to be served with court-ordered documentation. Without this documentation, the conservator has a legal obligation to honor the terms stipulated by the original living trust. These same steps will need to be followed if you intend for the living trust to be distributed differently upon its execution. Even if you intend to keep the terms of the living trust confidential with the beneficiaries, you can create a legal nightmare if multiple living trust charters exist.

Dissolving a Living Trust

Life doesn't always go to plan. If you feel the need to dissolve a living trust, you'll need the help of trust litigation lawyers to permanently dismantle it.

• Documenting and clearing: To dissolve a living trust, you will need to remove its assets and document where those assets go. From a legal standpoint, this can create tax and estate issues. Your trust litigation lawyers can draw up and submit the documentation you'll need to move the assets and dissolve the trust in a way that will limit your tax and estate liability. For instance, if your living trust includes property, you'll likely want to sell the property to an owner(s), even if you intend to give the property away. By selling the property, you can reduce the tax burden and make things clear when it comes to dividing up an estate. These same steps will need to be followed when it comes to dissolving assets like stocks, bonds, and other valuables that can't always easily be divided.

Contact a trust litigation lawyer for more information. 

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