A Florida Trustee’s Guide to Ending Trust Litigation

Understanding the correct way to resign as a Florida Trustee.

Are you a Florida trustee, maybe your mum or dad died, or your rich aunt or uncle left millions of dollars in trust and they named you as trustee. And lets say that you don’t get along with your beneficiaries. What’s the dirty secret about how to end that. Or maybe there is some litigation that is involved from your beneficiary to you as trustee. How do we end that? What’s the dirty secret about that? Well, the first thing you should think about is resigning. Why in the world do you want to be trustee if you don’t have a good relationship with your beneficiaries or you don’t understand the duties. So, what you want to do is read the trust document and determine how you resign and what steps you need to take. And remember, you are not off the hook until you get a release. So, you want to consider getting a release from your beneficiaries and if not, you need to go to court to get a judicial approval of your accounting’s. The last thing you want to do as Florida trustee is resign on Monday and then get sued on a Tuesday. And luckily enough, probate courts understand that and Florida trust law provides mechanisms or procedures for you, the Florida trustee to resign in a matter with some certainty to know that you wont be sued at a later time. Finally, you can ask your beneficiaries to release you, they don’t have to release you but you can certainly try to have all the beneficiaries and you agree that you are going to step down, you will resign and a new or successor trustee is going to take over that Florida trust