Did your relatives leave you property through a Palm Beach trust? Do you suspect that thetrustee has misappropriated funds? Do you know what remedies you have in West Palm Beach probate court? Check out what the Fourth District Court in California had to say about the matter of trustee misappropriation.
West Palm Beach Trusts
- When a person dies traditionally their property was left in a will but trusts are becoming very popular will substitutes.
- Do you know how a trust works?
- A trust has two titles, legal title and equitable title.
- A trustee holds legal title, and “owns the property” although it cannot be obtained by creditors, since it is held in trust for a beneficiary.
- A beneficiary holds “equitable title” or the rights of the property like the income and right of enjoyment of property.
- Do you know what happens when the two titles merge so that one person holds both equitable and legal title?
- This is called the doctrine of merger and the courts will likely hold that there is no trust when legal and equitable titles are merged.
- What happens when a trustee takes something out of the trust and uses it as their own?
- Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators know that you have to be on the look out fortrustee misappropriations.
Lawrence v. Lawrence
- The Fourth District Court of Appeals heard a trust dispute and filed its opinion on April 22, 2015.
- The appellant claims that when her mother died several trusts were made and that the trustee misappropriated certain art holdings when they belonged to the trust.
- The trustee claims that the art was never trust property.
- The case centered on whether or not the art was included in a broad part of the will that read “tangible property of a personal nature.”
- The court said that the art was a part of the trust body or “corpus”.
- Do you agree?
Want to learn even more?
Check out the entire case by clicking here.
Also make sure to check out our FAW video library to learn about will contests, trust disputes, guardianship and Florida will drafting!