Trusts & Estate’s Magazine
May 2020
When family members, friends and other nonprofessionals assume the role of fiduciary – whether it be for a trust or an estate – there are many considerations that advisors should address with them to assure that they fulfill their responsibilities properly. These considerations fall into four broad categories – carrying out administrative responsibilities; making legal judgments; exercising discretion; and complying with and maximizing tax laws. Many, perhaps most, non-professional fiduciaries don’t have the knowledge and training of their professional counterparts to appreciate the potential liability associated with these various actions. They frequently act in a manner motivated by emotional or personal views rather than by experience with difficult family dynamics compounded by the technicalities of the law, and they fail to appreciate not only the incredible complexity of the broad categories of responsibilities but also how intertwined any specific issue is with an array of other trust matters.
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