In some circumstances the beneficiary has become so jaded and upset they may want to challenge the validity of the trust itself. The beneficiary may believe the information is important to determine his or her interest in the trust or the information may be helpful in determining if the trustee has breached his or her fiduciary duty in administering the trust. Other times, however, a trustee and beneficiary may both be represented by competent legal counsel and a trustee may refuse to provide information the beneficiary has requested. This could leave beneficiaries frustrated and cause them to hire legal counsel just to sort out the basics of a trust administration. Unfortunately, it will likely be the blind leading the blind in the administration of the trust until competent legal counsel is retained. However, a relative usually has little or no experience in serving as a trustee of a trust. For example, clients regularly select a family relative to serve as a successor trustee of the client’s trust. A trustee may not necessarily refuse to provide information to a beneficiary, rather, the trustee may be ignorant of his or her responsibilities to the beneficiaries.
When information is not provided by the trustee, beneficiaries often assume the worst about the fiduciary’s administration of the trust, and significant legal fees can quickly begin to accrue. A beneficiary has the legal right to know certain information about his or her beneficial interest in the trust and the assets held by the trust. Oftentimes, a trustee’s refusal to provide beneficiaries with information related to the administration of a trust leads to consternation among the beneficiaries.
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