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Sucessor Trustee Wins Trust Attorney Fee Appeal in Palm Beach: July 8, 2015 4th DCA Opinion

Uncategorized • Jul 10, 2015
post about Sucessor Trustee Wins Trust Attorney Fee Appeal in Palm Beach: July 8, 2015 4th DCA Opinion

If you are the trustee of a Florida revocable trust, or maybe a beneficiary of your mom or dad’s Boca Raton living trust, you will want to read this July 8, 2015 Florida trust appeal from Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal, which sits in West Palm Beach, Florida and hears trust & estate appeals for Palm Beach & Broward Counties.

Can a trustee use trust assets to pay the Florida trustee’s lawyers?

  • Yes !  (but…………..)
  • Doesn’t the Florida Trust Code specifically permit a Florida trustee or a Broward successor trustee to hire a trust lawyer Palm Beach and have that trust attorney paid for from trust funds ?
  • Yes! (but….)
  • What if there is a disagreement between the Boca Raton trustee and the trust beneficiaries, who, for example, may be heirs or children of mom or dad who had a Florida revocable trust, drafted by their Palm Beach Gardens Estate Planning Attorney?
  • What if there is trust litigation?
  • How does a Florida trust lawsuit affect a Ft. Lauderdale trustee’s attorneys fees?
  • Well, remember that a Florida trustee must provide a Florida trust accounting, and relevant information, to trust beneficiaries.
  • Yes, Florida trust beneficiaries have rights and the Florida trustee can NOT run the trust in secret and play “hide the ball.”
  • Why?
  • The Florida Trust Code requires the trustee of any Florida trust to tell the beneficiaries what the trustee is spending money on, including how much trust money is being spent on trust lawyers Boynton Beach.
  • When there is trust litigation, a trustee Florida may file a trustee’s motion for fees and costs in that Florida trust lawsuit.
  • Vice versa, if a trust beneficiary is involved in, for example, a trust lawsuit Boca Raton, that trust beneficiary can seek, ask for, reimbursement of the trust beneficiary’s attorneys fees from the trust, or maybe from a part of an estate (if there is probate litigation Palm Beach) or in a trust lawsuit.
  • In fact, as of July 1, 2015, a new Florida estate law was just signed and went into effect, regarding Florida probate attorneys fees and costs.
  • But remember: distinguish between a Ft. Lauderdale trust lawsuit, and Chapter 736 of the Florida Trust Code and probate lawsuits and Florida estate litigation, which deals with the Florida Probate Code and Chapters 732 and 733 of Florida Statues.

Can a beneficiary of a Florida trust object to the successor trustee’s attorneys fees and costs?

  • Yes.
  • And perhaps one of the simplest ways to do this is to object to a Florida trustee’s motion for attorneys fees in a trust lawsuit if the Florida trustee did not properly ask for attorneys fees.
  • In Florida trust litigation, a trustee, or any party who wants to try to get attorneys fees and costs–like an heir beneficiary or a Florida trust protector– must plead attorneys fees and costs.
  • Trust litigation law firms West Palm Beach also refer to this as “pleading” attorneys fees or including attorneys fees and costs in your “prayer for relief“.
  • In this recent, July 8, 2015, Ft. Lauderdale trust lawsuit, a successor trustee lost at the probate court level in Broward County.
  • Did the successor trustee of the revocable trust Florida sufficiently, or properly ask for, or plead, entitlement to trust attorney fees and costs?
  • The probate court said “no.”
  • The appeals court, Florida’s 4th District Court of Appeal, which is in West Palm Beach and which hears Florida trust appeals, disagreed and reversed.

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