RMO Case Spotlight

Background 

Our client was the surviving spouse of her deceased husband’s high eight-figure trust estate, which, through some ill-advised estate planning, had left the client as a beneficiary with her estranged stepson and a bungling property manager as co-trustees. Our client’s husband’s passing triggered the creation of various subtrusts, one of which was a QTIP trust. Our client was to receive income and discretionary principal distributions from the trust. However, the co-trustees found themselves unable to meet the agreed-upon distributions due to mismanagement of the trust properties. 

Solution

Our client came to us hoping to remove the co-trustees and surcharge them for breach of fiduciary duty due to their gross mismanagement. RMO filed a petition for removal and breach of fiduciary duty. 

Results

After intensive negotiations, we secured a final, global resolution for our client that secured the resignations of the “bad” trustees and replaced them with an institutional trustee who is working to remedy their bad acts and save the estate. Additionally, we recovered our client’s attorneys’ fees and secured a distribution structure as laid out by the QTIP trust, preserving the intentions of the deceased spouse.