Your spouse or closest friend has just passed away.  A very sad period.  To make things more complicated you have been named as the individual trustee for a bunch of trusts.  

What to do next?  What does that really mean?

Talk to the lawyer who wrote the trust and/or Google some version of, Individual Trustee risk and responsibility.  At top of your Have To list are: decide on distributions to the beneficiaries, organize the annual tax return and find someone or manage the trust assets yourself.  There are allot of other Have To tasks on your list as the new individual trustee – Trust Administration and Trust Accounting.  There are horror stories about beneficiaries suing individual trustees.

A really easy answer is to hire Wealth Advisors Trust Company to do all the trust administrative tasks.  You remain in control of the distribution and investment decisions.  You are the trustee.  Not us.  Pretty neat!  We don’t manage money and don’t custody assets.  You get guidance from our Trust Officers on distribution decisions.  A solid solution.