Salt Flat, TX Estate Planning Law Firms & Lawyers

You may obtain information about the duties of a personal representative by contacting an attorney or the Register of Wills. A personal representative is entitled to reasonable compensation, not to exceed 9% of the first $20,000 of the estate plus 3.6% of the estate above $20,000.

Yes. You can set up multiple living trusts. However, what I have done in the past is to set up one living trust, and then have multiple irrevocable sub trusts. Each sub trust provides that upon a sale of the asset (i.e. real property) that the trust owns, unless a 1031 exchange occurs, the Irrevocable sub trust is terminated. The sole beneficiary of the irrevocable sub trust is the primary revocable living trust. If you (i.e. the trustee) want to buy one or more other properties, you just create a new irrevocable sub trust. I first began using this method with a client who owned multiple preschools, and the real property upon which they were located. Even with insurance, there is substantial risk of liability based upon the acts of employees, or just rumors about the school. In the 1980's commercial trustees lobbied for changes in the liability of trustees of California trust estates following changes in the law that required remediation of contaminated real property in California. Commercial trustees found themselves with unlimited liability when they merely held title to a parcel of real property that had been leased to a company that caused the contamination, or upon which contamination had migrated. There were others who were responsible for the contamination, but in many cases the companies not longer existed or did not have the resources to perform the remediation and filed bankruptcy.

I would give them the Death Certificate as well. The bank is probably just following their internal procedures. While your lawyer is not wrong, it is going to be easier to just give the bank what it wants that to try to fight them on this. If it was something more expensive or complicated, I might challenge them. In this case, I would just give it to them. Perhaps they can make a copy of the original and give it back to you.