What could cause the settlement of a trust to take 4 or more years?
Answer:
As others here have stated, the legal process can take years. Among the honest reasons is that nobody wants to make a mistake, because once the funds are disbursed they can't easily be recovered.
Another is the tax man. If the trust has to pay taxes (and possibly penalties) the trustee must be certain that it has enough funds.
If it is an overseas trust or an asset protection trust things can get that much more complicated, with questions of who has authority to get at the funds. The bank holding the funds will not want to send them to the wrong person and get hit with a lawsuit.
Nolo.com is an excellent and reputable source of free legal information.
lawyers
Attorneys making sure that they get most of your money. Scum sucking step-family contesting a will or other document.
It's called "fighting over the estate"!!
mb
Depends where they put the money in. Specially if the trust was not designed to be dismantled (as i guess is the case here) you could be looking at even longer.
Someone contesting it.
An administrator of the trust that either does not know what he is doing or an administrator (probably a lawyer) who sees more money on the table (in the trust) that he may have an opportunity to siphon off for himself, just hasn't figured out quite how yet. Other than regular administrative fees and such.
I am serious. Lawyers have a license to steal when it comes to settling estates, etc. and they do! Very few are ever caught. Their peer review and oversight committees are literally foxes guarding the hen house.
I saw an estate of over $1 million distributed at less than 10% of original valuation after about two years of juggling and attaching administration fees, etc. etc.
Force fruition while you still have something remaining.
The answers post by the user, for information only, BAnswer.com does not guarantee the right.
Other Questions and Answers: