Andrew Dósa Explains How to Choose the Right Trustee Wisely
Video Transcript
Ray Hrdlicka – Host – Attorneys.Media
We’re talking about somebody who is in charge of the money until that, and you said, who has discretion to be able to make some disbursements.
If the parents are gone, in your experience and in your education, who are the best people to do that?
Andrew Dósa – Estate Planning Attorney – Tacoma WA and Oakland, CA
Well, I’ll tell you the groupings of people that are identified, and then I’ll get to why those people were chosen.
I had a couple of clients that trusted their parents and picked four parents. They had four parents between the two of them and listed them in order. One parent was a business manager and had just run his own businesses fabulously well. They both trusted that father. And then they listed the four in order because they were both young when they created their trust.
The next follow-up is they trust each other. So, usually, the plan is when I’m gone, my spouse is going to handle things for me and serve as the successor trustee. We’re going to serve together at the beginning.
And then, usually, the more common scenario, the third option, is you pick among your children—who are the responsible ones, right? Then there’s a fourth category. Sometimes you pick siblings.
And then the fifth is sometimes you pick friends because you know they’re really good. In that group of friends or associates or acquaintances, I’ve had a couple of clients that picked their accountant, who they weren’t particularly friendly with, but friendly enough. They weren’t personal friends, but they trusted that person to do the work.
So you’re really looking for people that you know can manage things well. And we all know that there are fools and there are the wise. And so you don’t want to give money to a fool; you want to give money to the wise.
Jesus gave a great parable. There was a man who had three servants, three employees, and he gave ten talents to one, he gave five talents to another, and gave one to the third. The first went out, invested the ten, and brought back ten, so now twenty. The second went out, invested the five, came back with another five, now ten.
So the blessing to the first and the second was the same because they both had capability and they both did exactly as well as they could have. And the third said, “Well, I was afraid of you, so I buried it in the ground.”
“So here it is. I haven’t wasted your money.” Well, that’s a good thing; you didn’t waste the money, but you didn’t invest it and manage it well. And so the person who was in charge said, “Well, that’s kind of foolish of you. Look at the others.” They went out and invested, and you were just too afraid.
So that’s kind of the idea. Who’s going to be wise that you know of, who manages money well, who’s responsible? And usually, if it’s a person who’s got a personal stake in it, you know that they’re still going to have integrity or are not going to drop the ball and will follow through and take care of things as you’d like them to.
Okay.
Law Offices of Andrew Dosa – Estate Planning Attorney
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