Linotype

Hi,


A will in New Brunswick Canada was probated 3 year ago.
The three Trustees are members of the beneficiaries (total) 7 siblings.
Equal shares of real estate and financial holdings (bank accounts/mutual funds) have been bequeathed to each.
Financial assets have been divided and passed to siblings.
Real estate is another matter.
The family home is occupied by a long term resident who is not a beneficiary or a relative and does not pay. Actually her presence is a net loss to the estate.
Heating for this home costs $800 pm, funds coming out of the estate.
A real estate agent has been hired, he is experienced and was chosen by the trustees.
Hi gave his estimate of the properties as house: $250,000 and land and vacant land $281,000.
The family property (house 45 acres) was appraised at $250,000. The trustees placed a price of $500,000, although local properties sell in the region of $200,000 to $$250,000.
The other property (vacant land) which is on the other side of the city has not been put up for sale.
The trustees, are in my opinion, speculating with the price of the estate, as well as paying the on-going housing costs of a non-beneficiary.
My question is what can I do as a beneficiary, can the estate lawyer to convince the trustees to sell in a timely fashion.
PS. We contacted a lawyer in New Brunswick who told us he had just finished probating a will stated in 1957!! And that judges favoured the trustees in most cases brought against. That was until I told him about using estate funds to support a non-beneficiay.
Any help/direction appreciated.




Thank you

Almost Canadian

The trustees have a duty to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries and to gather in the estate as quickly as possible. However, it would appear that they are also form part of the beneficiaries.

Why are they attempting to sell the property at double its value? Why are they permitting a tenant to remain there without paying rent? A lawyer should be able to cut through this relatively quickly unless the trustees have very good reasons to act the way they are.

Linotype

Yes three of the seven beneficiaries are the trustees.
They (one trustee) is afraid of "giving the land away". I suspect this means waiting for the market to reach their price (that could be years from now). The other trustees grumble but go along to get along. The person in the house "is doing us a favor" caretaking the property according to (one trustee), Although the house is over 60 years
old and in need of major repairs, most of the trustees live close to the property. I should state that my wife is one of the beneficiaries and has verbally indicated to trustees that estate monies should not be wasted in this way and the property should be priced closer to market value, all this has fallen on deaf ears.
Should the estate lawyer be contacted to move the process along?
The response we got from a brief conversation with one other lawyer was that the courts are very reluctant to remove trustee(s).
I was shocked when he told us that he had just settled an estate from 1957!

shelley748

A trustee can be sued if a court finds them not acting in the best interest of the beneficiary...

ann m

What do the other four beneficiaries, who are not Trustees, think of this situation and are you all of a similar mindset?

Linotype

All four feel that the property is overpriced, and the current resident must go, but my wife is the only one that voices her concerns to the trustees. The rest are afraid to create bad feelings in the family by questioning the 'authority' of the trustees. Good reason for an independent (non family) trustee to handle estate matters.

Novocastrian

If the property is worth $250K that works out at $36K per beneficiary. Is this a life changing amount for your wife? Has she considered that most of it might go in lawyers fees?

Linotype

There is another property in the estate valued by the real estate agent at $281,000, this has not been put on the market. So this would increase the payout, although far less than the cash already payed out.
No, she will probably not go down the legal route. Quite apart from the cost would be the bitter feelings it would generate.

Novocastrian

Of course, it's absolutely none of my business, but I think that's wise. Inheritance squabbles can cost a lot more in terms of relationships among siblings than the value of the inheritance could possibly justify.

Luckily I don't speak from personal experience, but I have cousins in the UK who made this mistake.