Page 36 - Successor Trustee Handbook

Manage your expectations by having a clear understanding with your
attorney or other advisor, up front, as to when your phone calls will be
returned and tasks will be completed. Repeatedly contacting your
advisor, and becoming increasingly anxious or upset when each phone
call is not immediately returned, does not help get matters handled in the
most calm and efficient matter. As stated above, the attorney may
designate a contact person for you to call. Alternatively, you may want
to schedule periodic meetings with the attorney or other advisor and save
your non-urgent matters to be dealt with at those meetings.

Respond promptly and as completely as possible to requests made by
your attorneys and other advisors. When they receive late or incomplete
information from you, this may make it difficult and even impossible for
them to complete their tasks in a timely and accurate manner. By
providing important information at the last minute, you can also place
undue pressure on these professionals and cause mistakes that might not
ordinarily happen. Since you, the Trustee, are primarily responsible and
potentially personally liable for not only your own actions, but the actions
of other professionals whom you hire, it is important that you give them
the appropriate opportunity to do their jobs calmly, completely and
accurately.

Always be civil and courteous with the professional and all members of
his or her staff. Handling the administration of a Trust can, at times,
become aggravating and emotional, particularly because you are not
only dealing with the disability or death of someone who may have been
close to you, but you may also have to deal with friends or relatives who
are the beneficiaries and they may, from time to time, not be very civil
and courteous to you. It is important that you not transfer your or the
beneficiaries’ anxiety, upset or anger onto the professional and his or her
staff, as this most always will be counter-productive and may even result
in the attorney or other professionals terminating their relationship with
you.

If you are unhappy with your relationship with the attorney or other
professional advisor, first let him or her know and give him or her a
reasonable opportunity to “correct” any issues that have arisen. If then
you don’t get results you should not delay in terminating the relationship
and transferring the matter to another qualified professional. You do not
want to wait until the last minute to do this, otherwise, as Trustee, you
may be held liable if important matters are not attended to properly and
timely.

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