Considering a corporate trustee? Learn five ways to narrow your choices. Creating an estate plan is all about making important choices. These choices can range from picking your beneficiaries, making decisions about end-of-life care, to deciding whether or not to utilize a simple or sophisticated estate plan. If you are creating a trust as part of your plan, another important choice pertains to selecting your successor trustees. These are the individuals who will be in charge of carrying out the trust administration after you pass, so it is important to think carefully about whom to select. In some cases, a corporate trustee may be the best choice.
Five Tips for Choosing a Corporate Trustee for Your Trust
If you have decided to go with a corporate trustee for your trust, either serving alone or alongside a friend or loved one, you have many options in terms of which bank or company to choose. There are several banks and trust companies in the Anaheim area that offer these services. The following are five helpful tips for making your choice:
- Consider interviewing multiple corporate trustees. To improve the likelihood that a trust company will carry out your wishes as you see fit after you are gone, it is important to get to know the people who will be administering the trust. A meeting will give you the opportunity to choose the corporate trustee that you feel most comfortable with.
- Review the fee schedule of the corporate trustee. Fees for these services can range significantly.
- Determine whether the size of your estate meets the minimum threshold set by each of the trust companies that you are considering.
- Consult with the potential corporate trustee to determine their policies with regard to discretionary distributions. This can vary significantly between different entities.
- Review the services offered by the trust company. Some will handle all of the duties relating to administering a trust, from preparation of tax returns, to accountings, to distributions. Others may offer more limited services
Considering a corporate trustee? We hope that these tips are helpful as you choose a corporate trustee for your trust. For additional information on the latest news about estate planning in California, we encourage you to sign up for our free newsletter today!