Estate Settlement · Trust Administration
No court. Same duties. Less supervision to catch a mistake.
A successor trustee is a fiduciary from the moment they accept.
Trust administration is the private counterpart to probate: the successor trustee gathers the trust assets, pays valid debts and taxes, and distributes according to the trust, without a court supervising each step. That privacy and speed are the reason people create trusts. They are also the reason trustees get into trouble — nobody is checking the work until a beneficiary does, and by then the mistake is usually months old.
The first 120 days
Two deadlines most new trustees have never heard of.
Missouri’s Uniform Trust Code imposes affirmative duties to communicate, and they run on a clock that starts before most families have finished the funeral arrangements. Under RSMo § 456.8-813:
120 days to announce yourself
Within 120 days of accepting the trusteeship, notify the qualified beneficiaries that you have accepted, and give them your name, address and telephone number.
120 days on irrevocability
Within 120 days of learning that a trust has become irrevocable — ordinarily the settlor’s death — notify qualified beneficiaries of the trust’s existence, the settlor’s identity, and their right to request the trust instrument and trustee reports.
The ongoing duty
Keep qualified beneficiaries “reasonably informed about the administration of the trust and of the material facts necessary for them to protect their interests.” Silence is itself a breach, and it is the most common one.
The statute does not apply to trusts that became irrevocable before January 1, 2005 — a distinction that matters for long-running family trusts.
The trustee’s obligations
What the job actually requires.
Accept formally, or decline. Acceptance is a legal act with consequences. If you do not intend to serve, decline before you start handling assets — acting like a trustee makes you one.
Take control and secure the assets. Retitle accounts into the trust’s name with its own tax identification number, secure real estate, maintain insurance, and value everything as of the date of death.
Do not commingle. Trust money in a trust account. This is the failure that produces the most surcharges, and it is entirely avoidable.
Follow the document before your instincts. The trust says who gets what and when. A trustee who thinks the settlor would have wanted something different does not get to act on that belief.
Be impartial between beneficiaries. Especially between a surviving spouse entitled to income and remainder beneficiaries who take later — their interests genuinely conflict, and the trustee sits between them.
Invest prudently. Missouri applies the prudent investor standard: diversify unless the trust says otherwise, consider the whole portfolio, and do not leave the estate sitting in cash for two years by default.
Report annually, and finally. The statute requires a report of trust property, liabilities, receipts and disbursements, including the source and amount of the trustee’s own compensation, and a listing of assets with market values where feasible.
A trustee’s report starts a clock in the trustee’s favour.
Under RSMo § 456.10-1005, a beneficiary generally has one year to sue for breach after a report that adequately discloses a potential claim — and the trustee tells them the time allowed.
Without that, the outside period runs five years from the trustee’s removal, resignation or death, the termination of the beneficiary’s interest, or the termination of the trust. Reporting properly is not just a duty; it is the trustee’s own protection.
Where it goes wrong
The failures we are called in to fix.
The unfunded trust
A signed trust with the house still titled personally and the accounts still in the decedent’s own name. It avoids nothing. The family gets a probate and the cost of the trust — the single most common failure we see.
Going silent
A trustee who stops answering emails converts a routine administration into litigation. Most petitions to remove a trustee begin with months of unreturned calls rather than with theft.
Distributing too early
Paying out before debts, expenses and taxes are resolved leaves the trustee personally exposed for the shortfall.
Self-dealing
Buying trust property, renting the trust’s house below market, or hiring your own company. Even at a fair price this is a breach unless the trust or the beneficiaries authorise it.
Favouring one side
A trustee who is also a beneficiary, quietly resolving every ambiguity in their own favour. Impartiality is a duty, not a preference.
No records
If you cannot account for a dollar, the presumption runs against you. Contemporaneous records are the difference between an explanation and a surcharge.
Meet Derek Haake
He was the institutional trustee before he advised them.
Derek spent three years as a Vice President and Estate Settlement Officer at Bank of America Private Bank — the country’s largest provider of managed personal trust services — doing this exact work as the corporate fiduciary: interpreting trust instruments, valuing and transferring assets, coordinating with tax professionals, and reporting to beneficiaries who were grieving and sometimes in conflict with one another.
A corporate trustee operates under audit, with procedure and documentation standards an individual trustee never sees. Most of what goes wrong in a family trust administration is something those systems exist to prevent, which is why the fixes are usually procedural rather than dramatic.
He also drafts trusts, and litigated challenges to wills and trusts as a partner at Howard Haake from 2014 to 2022. Both halves: he writes the instrument, administers it, and is in court when someone attacks it.
Common questions
Trust administration in Missouri, answered.
I have just been named successor trustee. What do I do first?
Read the trust in full before you touch anything, and get the death certificate. Then decide whether you are accepting — because acting like a trustee is accepting, whatever you intended.
If you accept, the 120-day notices under RSMo § 456.8-813 start running. Obtain a tax identification number for the trust, open a trust account, inventory and value the assets as of the date of death, secure the real estate and keep the insurance in force.
What not to do: do not distribute anything, do not pay debts you have not verified, do not move money into your own account “temporarily,” and do not tell beneficiaries a distribution date you cannot guarantee.
How long does trust administration take?
Usually less than probate, because there is no six-month creditor claims period built in. A simple trust with liquid assets and cooperative beneficiaries can conclude in a few months.
What extends it: real estate to sell, a business interest to value, a federal estate tax return — which alone typically holds the administration open past nine months — ongoing sub-trusts for a surviving spouse or minor children, and beneficiaries in conflict.
Trusts that continue by design, such as a lifetime trust for a spouse or a trust holding a child’s share until a stated age, never “finish.” The trustee’s duties continue for years, including the annual reporting.
Can I be paid, and can I be sued?
Yes to both. A trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation unless the trust says otherwise, and the statute requires the source and amount of your compensation to be disclosed in your report. Family trustees frequently waive the fee, which is often sensible since a fee is taxable income and an inheritance generally is not.
On liability: a trustee who breaches can be surcharged, removed, and required to return improper compensation. The protection is process — document decisions, report on time, and where a decision is genuinely contestable, get beneficiary consent in writing or ask a court for instructions before acting rather than after.
RSMo § 456.10-1005 is the trustee’s friend here: a report that adequately discloses a potential claim, coupled with telling the beneficiary the time allowed, generally starts a one-year clock. Trustees who report properly stop being suable far sooner than trustees who do not.
The beneficiaries are demanding information. What do they get?
More than most trustees assume. Qualified beneficiaries are entitled to be kept reasonably informed about the administration and the material facts they need to protect their interests, to request the trust instrument, and to receive the annual and final reports.
They are not entitled to run the administration, to dictate investments, or to see information about a different beneficiary’s separate share where the trust is structured that way.
The practical advice is unglamorous: over-communicate. A trustee who sends a short quarterly update almost never gets sued. The cases that turn ugly are nearly always preceded by months of silence, which beneficiaries reasonably read as concealment.
What if the trust was never funded?
Then it did not do the job it was bought for, and there is likely a probate. A trust only controls what it owns — assets still titled in the decedent’s individual name pass through probate regardless of what the trust says.
Sometimes there is a partial fix. A pour-over will directs probate assets into the trust, which still gets them to the right beneficiaries, just slower and publicly. Where real estate is the problem, and depending on timing, there may be options worth examining.
If you are a trustee who has just discovered this, do not attempt to retitle the decedent’s assets into the trust yourself after death. That is not a fix, and it creates a serious problem of its own.
Do I need a lawyer to administer a trust?
Not always. A small, fully funded trust, liquid assets, one or two cooperative beneficiaries and a clear document can often be administered with limited help.
Get advice where any of these are present: real estate, a closely held business, a taxable estate, beneficiaries in conflict, a beneficiary with creditors or a disability, ambiguity in the document, a trust that continues for years, or any question about whether a distribution is permitted.
The trust ordinarily pays for the trustee’s legal advice as an administration expense — which means getting it right rarely comes out of the trustee’s pocket, while getting it wrong frequently does.
Ready to start?
Get the first 120 days right.
Twenty minutes, no commitment. Bring the trust, the death certificate and a list of assets. We will tell you what notices are due, what has to happen before any distribution, and whether you need ongoing help or a single conversation.
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. Trustee duties depend on the terms of the particular trust and the facts. Consult a licensed attorney about your situation.