Estate Settlement · Beneficiary Representation
You are entitled to an accounting. You should not have to beg for one.
Representing the beneficiary, not the estate.
The personal representative or trustee has a lawyer. That lawyer represents the fiduciary, not you — a distinction most beneficiaries discover only when they ask a question and get a careful non-answer. This page is about what you are entitled to, what to do when the fiduciary goes quiet, and when it is worth doing something about it.
The mismatch
The estate’s lawyer is not your lawyer.
It is a genuinely confusing arrangement. The fiduciary is often a sibling. The fees come out of the estate you are inheriting from. And the attorney is friendly and answers your calls. But that attorney’s duty runs to the fiduciary, and if your interests and the fiduciary’s diverge, the attorney is not on your side of that line.
That does not mean you need your own lawyer in every estate. Most administrations are handled honestly and conclude without anyone needing separate counsel. It means you should know which situation you are in.
You are entitled to information
A trust beneficiary must be kept “reasonably informed about the administration of the trust and of the material facts necessary for them to protect their interests,” and may request the trust instrument and the trustee’s reports.
You are entitled to an accounting
Trustees owe annual and final reports of property, liabilities, receipts and disbursements — including the source and amount of their own compensation. In a probate estate, the settlement filings serve the same function.
You are entitled to impartial treatment
A fiduciary who is also a beneficiary does not get to resolve every ambiguity in their own favour. Impartiality is an enforceable duty.
When to be concerned. Not every delay is misconduct — estates legitimately take months, and a fiduciary handling a parent’s death is often grieving too. The signals worth acting on are more specific.
Months of unanswered calls and emails. Refusal to provide the will or trust document. No accounting, or an accounting that does not reconcile. Estate assets used personally — living in the house rent-free, driving the car, spending from the account. A sale of estate property to the fiduciary or a relative. Distributions to some beneficiaries but not others. A fiduciary’s fee that appears without explanation. And the administration simply going nowhere for a year with no reason given.
What usually works first. A written demand from a lawyer, sent to the fiduciary and their counsel, resolves a surprising share of these. Fiduciaries who have been ignoring a sibling frequently respond immediately to a letter that cites the statute and asks for the accounting they already owed.
Litigation is available and sometimes necessary. It is rarely the first step, and it is paid for out of the same estate everyone is waiting on.
A trustee’s report can start a one-year clock against you.
Under RSMo § 456.10-1005, a beneficiary generally has one year to sue after a report that adequately discloses a potential claim and tells you the time allowed.
Which means the accounting you finally received, and set aside because it looked complicated, may be running a deadline right now. If you have been sent a trustee’s report and something in it does not look right, have it read promptly rather than eventually.
What we do
Remedies that do not require attacking the will.
Demand an accounting
Often the whole case. A formal demand citing the statutory duty, followed where necessary by a petition to compel. Many disputes end the moment real numbers appear.
Remove a fiduciary
Where a personal representative or trustee has failed to perform, has a disabling conflict, or has lost the confidence of the beneficiaries for good reason.
Surcharge for loss
Where a breach has actually cost the estate money — an improper sale, an unexplained withdrawal, a fee that was never earned — the fiduciary can be ordered to repay it personally.
Compel distribution
Where the administration is complete in substance and the fiduciary is simply sitting on the assets.
Recover transferred assets
Property moved before or after death — frequently under a power of attorney in the final months — traced and brought back into the estate.
Enforce a spouse’s rights
The elective share under RSMo § 474.160, plus exempt property and the statutory allowances, which come ahead of general creditors and cannot be defeated by the will alone.
Meet Derek Haake
He knows what a clean administration looks like.
Derek spent three years as a Vice President and Estate Settlement Officer at Bank of America Private Bank, serving as the institutional fiduciary and reporting to beneficiaries — including beneficiaries who were unhappy, suspicious, or in conflict with each other. He knows exactly what a properly documented administration looks like, which is what makes it obvious when one is not.
That vantage point matters here in a specific way. A corporate trustee operates under audit and produces accountings that reconcile. When an individual fiduciary’s numbers do not, he can usually tell within an hour whether the explanation is disorganisation or something worse — and those call for very different responses.
He also litigated challenges to wills and trusts as a partner at Howard Haake from 2014 to 2022, prosecuting and defending. Having defended fiduciaries is what makes the advice to a beneficiary realistic about what a court will actually do.
Common questions
Beneficiary rights in Missouri, answered.
The executor will not tell me anything. What can I do?
Start with a written request, and keep a copy. A great many fiduciaries are not concealing anything — they are overwhelmed, grieving, and have no idea what they are obliged to provide.
If that produces nothing, a demand letter from a lawyer citing the statutory duty resolves a substantial share of these cases without a filing. For a trust, RSMo § 456.8-813 requires the trustee to keep qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed and to provide reports on request. In a probate estate the file is public — the inventory and settlements are on record and you can obtain them from the court.
Where the silence continues, a petition to compel an accounting is available, and in serious cases removal. Courts do not react well to a fiduciary who cannot explain where the money went.
One practical note: get the probate file first. It is public, it costs almost nothing, and it frequently answers the question before anyone spends money on lawyers.
My sibling is the trustee and is living in mom’s house rent-free. Is that allowed?
Usually not, though it depends on the document. If the trust gives a beneficiary the right to occupy the property, that is the settlor’s choice and it governs. Absent that, a fiduciary who occupies estate property without paying fair rental value is generally taking a benefit at the other beneficiaries’ expense — classic self-dealing.
The same analysis applies to using the car, spending from the account “for expenses,” or paying themselves a fee that was never disclosed.
Being realistic about proportion: where the house is being sold in three months and the sibling is maintaining it, the rental value may be a poor thing to fight about. Where it has been two years and the property is deteriorating, it is a real claim — and the failure to account for it is often the stronger one.
How long should this take before I worry?
A probate estate commonly runs nine to twelve months, driven by the six-month creditor claims period under RSMo § 473.360. A trust administration is often faster. Real estate, a business, a federal estate tax return or a dispute can extend either well past a year, legitimately.
So the timing itself is a weak signal. What matters more is whether the fiduciary can tell you why. “We are waiting on the estate tax closing letter” is an answer. Silence for eight months is not.
Ask for a written status update and a projected timeline. A fiduciary who is doing the job can produce both in a page. One who cannot is telling you something.
Do I need my own lawyer, or is the estate’s lawyer enough?
Often the estate’s lawyer is enough, and hiring separate counsel for an ordinary administration wastes money that would otherwise be inherited.
Get your own advice where: you are being asked to sign a receipt, release or waiver; the accounting does not make sense; the fiduciary is also a beneficiary and decisions keep favouring them; you are a surviving spouse considering the elective share, which has its own deadline; assets moved before death; or the fiduciary has stopped communicating.
The release point deserves emphasis. Fiduciaries routinely ask beneficiaries to sign a receipt and release before distribution. Signing it generally ends your ability to complain about the administration later. That is a document to have reviewed before signing, not after — and asking for time to do so is entirely normal.
What does it cost to challenge a fiduciary?
Less than most people fear for the first step, and more than most people expect if it becomes litigation. A demand letter and a review of the accounting is a contained, hourly piece of work, and it resolves a meaningful share of these matters outright.
Contested proceedings — compelling an accounting, removal, surcharge — are hourly and can run into real money. Where a fiduciary’s breach caused a loss, a court can order fees paid from the estate or by the fiduciary personally, but that is an outcome, not a guarantee.
We will tell you at the consultation whether the amount at stake justifies the fight. Sometimes the answer is that you are right and it still is not worth it — and you deserve to hear that before you spend anything.
Can I be removed as a beneficiary for complaining?
Not for asking questions. Requesting an accounting, asking for the trust document, or querying an expense is exercising a right the statute gives you, and no-contest clauses generally do not reach it.
The analysis changes if you attack the validity of the instrument itself. That can be a “contest” that triggers forfeiture, depending on the clause’s wording — which is exactly why the two paths are analysed separately. See Contested Estates & Will Contests.
In practice this is the most useful distinction on this page: most beneficiaries who feel wronged do not need to challenge the will at all. They need the fiduciary to account, and that route carries none of the forfeiture risk.
Ready to start?
Before you sign the release.
Twenty minutes, no commitment. Bring whatever you have — the accounting, the release you were asked to sign, or simply the emails that went unanswered. We will tell you what you are owed and whether it is worth pursuing.
Schedule a Free Consultation(314) 732-1547
Email derek@haakelawgroup.com · Offices in Wildwood, MO & St. Louis, MO (by appointment)
This page is general information about Missouri law, not legal advice, and does not create an attorney-client relationship. Beneficiary rights depend on the instrument and the facts. Consult a licensed attorney about your situation.