EB 1 – Maintaining Balance on A High Wire: Managing Trust Assets While Also Managing Beneficiary Expectations

When a private professional fiduciary is acting as a trustee, there may be unavoidable tension between the role of the private professional fiduciary in properly managing assets, and expectations of beneficiaries – often family members – regarding those same assets. As attorneys who regularly represent private professional fiduciaries, we have observed that oftentimes family members are unable to understand why this “stranger” is involved in making decisions regarding assets that may be long-held family assets, and why such decisions regarding the management of those assets are not made democratically rather than what they may perceive as a “dictatorship”. This presentation will guide the private professional fiduciary in managing assets, some of which have more of an emotional component than other assets, and how to fairly, but firmly, manage expectations of beneficiaries concerning the assets.