Should You Use a Professional Trustee? (Episode # 301)

0:31 Good afternoon, Michigan Anders. It's Tuesday, March nineteen, twenty twenty four, and of course this is Tuesday with Tom, Michigan's only weekly Internet show where we do answer your questions about a state planning and a state settlement in Michigan, and we don't send you a bill. As always, I'm your host, Tom Doyle, a state planning attorney, lifelong Michigan resident, and ambassador for all things good in this great state of Michigan. Welcome, Welcome to today's program. Well, just a brief recap of the last episode.

1:11 I talked about the benefits of a trusteed IRA over a traditional IRA. So you're looking at your estate plan, you have an IRA, You're looking at what am I going to do with my IRA? How's that going to be part of my estate plan? Perhaps I don't want the assets of that are in the IRA to be distributed outright to somebody. Listen to last week's episode where I talk about what a trustee IRA is and how it might be appropriate for you to consider as part of your estate plan. Today's topic should you use a professional trustee? But please remember what I'm about to discuss, as always is for educational purposes only. It is not intended to be legal advice.

2:13 You need to work with your attorney. To the attorney and what is appropriate for you and your estate plan. Should you use a professional trustee? Well, I guess let's start with a basic question, what exactly is a professional trustee? Well, a professional trustee is going to be perhaps an individual or an organization with expertise in managing trust and estates. Perhaps you have your accounts out of at a large bank, which oftentimes offer professional trustee services, or you might have accounts with a large financial organization that might be offering professional trustee services. But it's a situation where that organization or an individual will have expertise in managing trust and estates. While some people might decide, let me choose my family members or friends to work as trustees, others may well op for professionals due to the unique benefits that they offer. So why might you

3:45 consider choosing a professional trustee over a family member or friend. There can be several compelling reasons. One, expertise and experience. Professional trustee are often financial experts might be attorneys, specialized firms with extensive experience in managing trust in the States and they have a deep understanding of the legal and financial matters, ensuring that your assets are going to be managed efficiently and accord in accordance with your wishes. Another reason could be neutrality and objectivity. Family dynamics can become complicated during trust administration. By appointing a professional trustee, you are ensuring impartiality in decision making, and professional trustees are going to be required to prioritize the best interest of all of the trust beneficiaries without being swayed, perhaps by personal relationships or conflicts of interest. Sometimes that ends up being an issue when inn a state is being settled or a trust is being settled. If you have a

5:16 family member appointed as a trustee, sometimes they will be affected in what they're doing by how they get along with the other beneficiaries, or do they have any particular conflicts of interests themselves that can be avoided by having a professional trustee. A third reason, how about continuity and stability. Unlike individual trustees who might become incapacitated or might die themselves, a professional trustee service, such as perhaps that being offered by your bank or by your financial organization or a standalone trust company, offers continuity and stability. That would be that trust management is going to continue in the event of personal circumstances. Another reason risk management and compliance. Professional trustees are well versed in fiduciary responsibilities, that is, the responsibilities that a trustee has in managing a trust and settling a trust and regulatory requirements. They're there to mitigate risks, ensure compliance with the laws, protect

6:49 the assets that are in the trust, and minimizing potential for legal disputes or issues. So those are just a few of the reasons that you might consider it. Again, expertise and experience, neutrality and objectivity, continuity and stability, risk management and compliance. Now some might argue, well, yeah, but a professional trustee charges a fee, so there's a cost associated with having a professional trustee. Well, the fact of the matter is, in the state of Michigan, if you appoint a family member or a friend to service trustee, unless you draft your trust differently, they too have a right to be paid for the services that they are going to provide you. So even a friend or family member who is serving as a trustee has the right to be paid. Now, oftentimes people are concerned at the potential that a professional trustee fees though, are going to be perhaps significantly more than would a family member or friend charge. That's something that obviously you need to have a conversation

8:24 with the professional trustee that you are considering so that you fully understand how their fees are going to be calculated, what is included in the fee that's being charged, so that you can make an intelligent determination about whether or not you want to use that particular professional trustee. Another thing though, that sometimes people think, is well, if I have a professional trustee, I'm basically excluding family members entirely in the settling in the estate. And that doesn't have to be the case. In many cases, the professional trustees will work collaboratively with your family members. You can even if you wish, appoint a family member as perhaps a co trustee or maybe a joint trustee, depending upon what arrangements are going to be made, where they will work hand in hand with the professional trustee. Again, that's something that you're going to have to discuss with the professional trustee so that you are sure that they are willing to serve in that either co or joint capacity. In the end, though, the decision

9:56 about using a professional trustee ultimately is going to depend upon your individual circumstances, your preferences, and perhaps and the complexity of the state. You might have a very simple estate that's not going to require much of a trustee to do, and in that case it might not really make sense the fee that the professional is going to charge, or looking for professional trustees might not make sense to you, whereas the more complicated your estate gets. In that case, you might start looking and saying, will I be better served? Will my heirs be better served in having professionals involved in the ultimate settlement of my estate?

11:13 Of course, if we can be of any assistance to you in helping you make a determination about whether or not you're going to use a professional trustee, or perhaps recommendations or suggestions about who that professional trustee might be, certainly a conversation that we can have with you, and as always, we would be honored to have the opportunity to help you in protecting your loved ones by putting together your state plan, amending a current plan, or assisting you in settling your state. Simply head on over to the website Doyle LAWPC dot com. There you're going to find information on how to schedule a virtual consultation either use boom or zoom I'm sorry, or telephone or an in person consultation at the current East Lansing office. So all that information will be available on the website. You can actually schedule the consultations through links that we have to our calendars on the website. A reminder too, that we do have our legal store on the website that's designed for somebody who just needs one document. Maybe all you need is a new certificate of trust. You can go to the legal store, fill out the information at the Legal Store, and if everything is in order, we will prepare and email you that document for you to print out and execute. So again I encourage you head over to DOILOWPC dot

12:46 com for more information and to schedule your consultation. Well, I think that's going to be it for today's show though. As always, though, if you have a comment about the program, perhaps a topic that you'd like to have me answer discuss, or questions that you'd like to have answered, a couple options. One is simply shoot me an email that would be tomat Tuesday with Tom dot com. The other option that is now available at our new website is there's a microphone on the website. You can click on that microphone and you can leave me a voice message. Whether it's a comment that you have about the program, or question that you'd have that you'd like me to answer during the program, or perhaps another topic that is of interest to you that you'd like me to discuss. Simply click on the microphone and leave me a voicemail. Please also follow us on Facebook and invite your friends and family to follow us. That's at two with Tom, and if you do follow us on Facebook, you're going to see that frequently. I am posting other information that I think is of interest or helpful, whether you're putting together a state plan, or maybe it's just of interest to you as being a Michigander.

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15:07 Well, thanks again, though for spending some of your time with us today. I hope that you have an awesome day and an awesome week in Michigan. Stay safe. Tuesday with Tom has been brought to you by the estate planning attorneys at Doyle Law PC. To learn how we can help you with your estate plan or with settling a loved one's estate, please call us today at five one seven three two three seven three sixty six. That's five one seven three two three seven three sixty six.