Reply to Estate/Trust Distribution Question

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]There may be more to this trust - for example a clause where the trustee/spouse can live in it until their death, and THEN the property gets distributed to the OTHER beneficiaries.  By how you've written it, the trustee is a beneficiary.  All of the beneficiaries are heirs, including the spouse.  When speaking of a trust, those who receive assets through a trust are beneficiaries.

If all of the beneficiaries are in agreement, there is no reason to sell the property.  That INCLUDES the trustee beneficiary.

If one beneficiary wants the cash instead of the property, things get tricky, and you will likely have to consult a lawyer to see what can occur.  If it is only the spouse who wants/needs cash, the other beneficiaries can buy the property from the trust - in the end this will really mean only providing cash to the trustee to cover estate expenses and the amount of the valuation over $1 million.

Hope this helps.  [/quote]

Thanks so much for the reply. Hope you don't mind some clarifications that might help.

The trust bequeaths the $1 mil in cash or in kind specifically to the children (of which I am one). Anything else goes to the surviving spouse, after the estate costs are paid. And it's not a step- situation, these are my parents.

The property was owned only by my deceased parent, and is not the house my parents lived in. (Their house is/was owned jointly, I assume with rights of survivorship.)

The surviving parent's estate (worth more than $1 million on its own) will eventually go to the children as well, so if this isn't handled before the surviving parent passes away (no spring chicken!), the entire point of doing it this way (to in essence get two exemptions from the Maryland estate tax) would be nullified. And the trustee/spouse/parent clearly doesn't like the notion of paying taxes to The Man. :), so we're getting the sense that the surviving parent just wants to get this over and done.

My siblings and I would really like to control the disposition of the property ourselves. It's many acres, may not sell promptly, and there's always the fear potential complications (i.e., a remarriage or some such).

But if the appraisal comes in above $1 million, we are just feeling like we have no options other than to watch our surviving parent liquidate it. Yes, the money would be nice to have, but hard feelings would probably linger.

This isn't a terribly contentious situation (yet!), but I'm just wanting to have some idea of what sort of options there may be when it comes time to discuss how to handle it. And we all share the same estate lawyer, so I'm not quite comfortable going to him for counsel.

Thank you again. This is just no fun to have this potentially be an unhappy situation on the heels of a devastating loss.

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