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How to Choose Your Successor Trustees

Loyalty, Trust and Common Sense

By , About.com Guide

Serving as the successor Trustee of a Revocable Living Trust, whether due to the Trustmaker's disability or death, is a huge responsibility and time consuming burden, but with the help of your estate planning attorney you should be able to choose the right person or institution for the job. Here are the qualities you should look for in your successor Trustee:

Extremely loyal and fair

Your successor Trustee must be loyal to you if you become disabled and loyal to your beneficiaries after you die. Aside from this, a successor Trustee must be fair in the treatment of multiple trust beneficiaries in order to protect all of their interests during the course of administration of the trust.

Extremely trustworthy

Your successor Trustee will need to be trusted with large sums of immediately available cash and other property and capable of investing and selling all of these assets wisely.

Practical

Your successor Trustee must have common sense and be able to make practical decisions while administering the trust for your benefit if you become disabled and for the benefit of your beneficiaries after you die.

Organized

Your successor Trustee must be organized so that the trust checking account balances and all bills, invoices, statements, and other various backup documentation can be located quickly.

Tough

Your successor Trustee must be thick skinned to be able to deal with greedy beneficiaries who want distributions for just about any reason; the vast amounts of red tape that financial institutions and the government will throw their way; and unforeseen circumstances around every corner.

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