Private Trustee Services

While most people will designate a family member such as a spouse, adult child, sibling or other close relative to serve as successor trustee of the irrevocable trusts that are created upon their death, there are a number of 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

For those individuals choosing to appoint a professional trustee, they can appoint a private professional fiduciary. The benefits of appointing Select Fiduciary Group 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, investment advisor or real estate professional 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 successor trustee, some services we provide include:

• Marshalling and creating an inventory of all trust assets including all accounts and real and personal property and insuring that they are held in the appropriate trust name
• Making all of 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 of 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 so as 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