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1. Who Will Oversee My Trustee? The answer may
surprise you…
So who is in chargeof overseeing your Trustee if that person chooses to violatethe lawand breach his or her
fiduciary duties?
Surely there is some governmental agency that will step in and hold that bad Trustee accountable…isn’tthere?
The truth is thatthere is no governmental authority that oversees that acts of individual Trustees. There is some
oversightof corporateTrustees, and privateprofessional Trustees,but not individualswho a re named to actas
Trustee.
Of course,you can always takeyour Trustee to court and ask the court to hold them accountable,but that requires
YOU to take action,gather evidence, and actas both investigator and prosecutor of your own case.
Often, people think that what a Trustee is doingamounts to a criminal act. Thatis rarely the case. In fact, short of
justtakingthe Trust money and runningto Mexico,few acts of a Trustee qualify as beingcriminal. Instead,they
are either a breach of fiduciary duty,which is a civil lawsuitbroughtby you (the beneficiary),or itis forgiven as a
non-issue.
More importantly,there is no government agency that oversees Trustees on your behalf or forces Trustees to act
appropriately. Instead,each individual Trusteeis expected to act accordingto the Trust document and California
Trust law,even though few privateTrustees even know the true extent of their duties.
The bottom lineto all of this:you must oversee your own Trustee. As a beneficiary,you are entitled to
information,accountings,and to be treated fairly. If any of those items are amiss (or all of them), then you must
take action in courtto protect yourself. No one else is goingto step in and help, you must take action to help
yourself. That is whatthe probate courtis there for, but itrequires you to take action.