Trust Litigation in Los Angeles County

If a trust dispute involves Los Angeles County, the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles decides it. Trust litigation is how beneficiaries, heirs and trustees ask that court to rule on whether a trust is valid, whether a trustee broke the rules, and who receives the property. California's Probate Code sets the deadlines and the remedies.

Most people facing a trust dispute in Los Angeles County did not plan on being in court. They come to it after a parent's death, after a late-life amendment that changed everything, or after months of unanswered questions from a sibling who became trustee. Some are beneficiaries who suspect money or a house has gone missing. Others are trustees who have been accused of misconduct and want to understand what the accusation means. This page explains how these disputes are heard in Los Angeles County, which California rules apply, and what a court may order. It does not take sides, and it does not assume any one account of the family's story is true.

What Trust Litigation in Los Angeles County Involves

Trust litigation is a court proceeding in which a beneficiary, heir, trustee or other interested person asks the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles to resolve a dispute about a trust's validity, a trustee's conduct, or the distribution of trust assets. A trust is a legal arrangement in which one person, the trustee, holds and manages property for the benefit of others, the beneficiaries. The person who created the trust is the settlor.

In Los Angeles County, as everywhere in California, these disputes tend to fall into a few broad categories:

• Trust contests, which challenge whether the trust or an amendment is valid at all.
• Breach of fiduciary duty claims, which allege that a trustee mismanaged, misused or concealed trust property. A fiduciary duty is the legal duty to act in another person's interest rather than one's own.
• Trustee removal petitions, which ask the court to replace a trustee.
• Accounting and information demands, which ask the court to require a trustee to disclose what the trust holds and what has been done with it.
• Property recovery actions, which seek to bring back a house, an account, a business interest or personal property that someone allegedly took from a trust or estate.

The general authority for most of these proceedings is Probate Code section 17200(a). Except as section 15800 provides, a trustee or beneficiary may petition the court concerning the internal affairs of the trust or to determine whether the trust exists. A petition is the written request that starts the case. Section 17200(b) lists proceedings that count as internal affairs, including construing the trust's language, deciding the validity of a trust provision, settling a trustee's accounts and passing on the trustee's acts, instructing the trustee, and compelling the trustee to provide trust terms or information. That list is expressly not exhaustive: the statute says internal affairs proceedings "include, but are not limited to" those purposes. A fuller explanation is in this site's guide to the Probate Code 17200 petition.

Trust and estate cases in Los Angeles County are heard by the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. The same California statutes govern disputes in every county in Southern California and the rest of the state; what differs from county to county is the court where the case is filed.

Trust Contests: Challenging Validity in Los Angeles

A trust contest attacks the trust instrument itself. The claim is that the document, or a particular amendment, should not be enforced because the settlor lacked the mental capacity to make it, because it was the product of undue influence, or because of fraud or forgery. That is a different kind of case from a dispute over how a trustee is administering a trust everyone agrees is valid. Families in Los Angeles often see the two overlap, for example when a trustee who benefited from a late amendment is also accused of mismanaging the trust.

The contest deadline. Probate Code section 16061.7(a) requires the trustee to serve a written notification in listed events, including when a revocable trust, or part of it, becomes irrevocable because of a settlor's death, and whenever the trustee of an irrevocable trust changes. The list is partial; the statute names other events as well. Under section 16061.8, a person served with the notification given under section 16061.7(a)(1) cannot bring an action to contest the trust more than 120 days from the date the notification is served on that person, or 60 days from the date a copy of the trust's terms is delivered to that person during that 120-day period, whichever is later. Two things set the clock running: service of the trustee's notification, and, where it happens within the 120 days, delivery of the trust terms. The period does not run from the date of death. Not every trust contest falls under this particular deadline, and which deadline governs depends on whether and how the notification was served. The site's overview of how to contest a trust covers this further.

The donative-transfer presumption. Probate Code section 21380(a) provides that a provision of an instrument making a donative transfer (a gift) to certain persons is presumed to be the product of fraud or undue influence. The persons listed include the person who drafted the instrument; a person who transcribed it, or caused it to be transcribed, while in a fiduciary relationship with the transferor; and a care custodian of a transferor who is a dependent adult, but only if the instrument was executed while the care custodian provided services or within 90 days before or after that period. The list also reaches certain relatives, cohabitants and employees of those persons, among others. A presumption of this kind shifts the burden of proof, meaning the person receiving the gift must prove it was valid. California law generally allows that presumption to be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence, but it is conclusive, meaning it cannot be rebutted, for a transfer to the drafter and to certain people the law associates with the drafter. A beneficiary who fails to rebut the presumption bears all costs of the proceeding, including reasonable attorney's fees. This does not mean every gift to a caregiver, relative or helper is presumed invalid; the presumption applies only to the persons and circumstances the statute describes.

No-contest clauses. A no-contest clause is a provision saying a beneficiary who challenges the trust loses what they would otherwise receive. Under Probate Code section 21311(a), such a clause may be enforced only against a direct contest brought without probable cause, and, only if the clause expressly says so, against a pleading challenging a transfer of property on the ground that it was not the transferor's property at the time, or against the filing of a creditor's claim or an action based on it. Under section 21311(b), probable cause exists if, at the time the contest is filed, the facts known to the contestant would cause a reasonable person to believe there is a reasonable likelihood the requested relief will be granted after an opportunity for further investigation or discovery. A no-contest clause does not automatically disinherit everyone who challenges a trust.

Trustee Duties and Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims

Many beneficiaries in Los Angeles County reasonably wonder whether a trustee's silence or a puzzling sale of the family home crosses a legal line. The Probate Code answers that question by setting out specific duties.

Loyalty. Under Probate Code section 16004(a), a trustee has a duty not to use or deal with trust property for the trustee's own profit or for any other purpose unconnected with the trust, and not to take part in any transaction in which the trustee has an interest adverse to the beneficiary. Section 16004(c) adds that a transaction between the trustee and a beneficiary, during the trust or while the trustee's influence over the beneficiary remains, by which the trustee obtains an advantage from the beneficiary is presumed to violate the trustee's fiduciary duties. That presumption affects the burden of proof, and it does not apply to an agreement about the trustee's hiring or compensation.

Information. Under Probate Code section 16060, the trustee has a duty to keep the beneficiaries reasonably informed of the trust and its administration. A separate duty, in section 16061, generally requires the trustee to report requested information relevant to a beneficiary's interest on reasonable request.

Accounts. An account is the trustee's formal report of what the trust received, held, spent and distributed. Under Probate Code section 16062, except as that section and section 16064 provide, the trustee must account at least annually, at the termination of the trust and upon a change of trustee, to each beneficiary to whom income or principal is required or authorized in the trustee's discretion to be currently distributed. Not every beneficiary is owed an annual account; a beneficiary whose interest begins only later may not be. Some older trusts are also outside this duty. Even where a trust instrument or a beneficiary's writing waives the account, California law allows the court to compel the trustee to account upon a showing that it is reasonably likely a material breach of the trust has occurred.

Remedies for breach. If a trustee commits or threatens to commit a breach of trust, a beneficiary or cotrustee may begin a proceeding under Probate Code section 16420(a) for any appropriate purpose on its list:

• to compel the trustee to perform the trustee's duties;
• to enjoin (court-order a stop to) a breach;
• to compel the trustee to redress a breach by payment of money or otherwise;
• to appoint a receiver or temporary trustee to take possession of and administer the trust property;
• to remove the trustee;
• subject to section 18100, to set aside acts of the trustee;
• to reduce or deny the trustee's compensation;
• subject to section 18100, to impose an equitable lien or a constructive trust on trust property (a constructive trust is a court order treating property as held for its rightful owner); and
• subject to section 18100, to trace trust property that was wrongfully disposed of and recover it or its proceeds.

Under section 16420(b), these remedies do not prevent resort to any other appropriate remedy provided by statute or the common law.

Surcharge. A surcharge is a court order that a trustee personally pay for harm caused by a breach. Under Probate Code section 16440(a), a trustee who commits a breach is chargeable with whichever is appropriate: any loss or depreciation in value resulting from the breach, with interest; any profit the trustee made through the breach, with interest; or any profit that would have accrued to the trust if the lost profit resulted from the breach. Under section 16440(b), if the trustee acted reasonably and in good faith under the circumstances as known to the trustee, the court may in its discretion excuse the trustee in whole or in part if it would be equitable. A surcharge is not automatic.

Time limits. Under Probate Code section 16460(a), a breach of trust claim is barred unless a proceeding is begun within three years after the beneficiary receives an interim or final account or other written report that adequately discloses the existence of the claim. Where no account or report adequately discloses the claim, or the beneficiary received none, the three years run from when the beneficiary discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the subject of the claim. An account adequately discloses a claim if it gives enough information that the beneficiary knows of the claim or reasonably should have inquired.

Trustee Removal and Petitions to the Los Angeles Superior Court

Under Probate Code section 15642(a), a trustee may be removed in accordance with the trust instrument, by the court on its own motion, or on petition of a settlor, cotrustee or beneficiary under section 17200. Section 15642(b) lists grounds the court may rely on, including a breach of trust; insolvency or other unfitness to administer the trust; hostility or lack of cooperation among cotrustees that impairs administration; the trustee failing or declining to act; excessive compensation under the circumstances; and, with stated exceptions, a sole trustee who is one of the persons described in section 21380(a). The list is partial.

When the dispute is about silence rather than misconduct, section 17200(b)(7) allows a petition to compel the trustee to provide a copy of the trust's terms, and to compel the trustee to provide information under section 16061 if the trustee has not provided the requested information within 60 days after the beneficiary's reasonable written request and the beneficiary has not received the requested information from the trustee within the six months before the request. A parallel provision allows a petition to compel an account where the trustee has not submitted a requested account within 60 days after written request and no account has been made within the six months before the request.

Once a petition is before it, the court has broad authority. Under Probate Code section 17206, the court in its discretion may make any orders and take any other action necessary or proper to dispose of the matters presented, including appointing a temporary trustee to administer the trust in whole or in part.

These petitions are filed with the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles. General information about how California's superior courts are organized is available on the California Courts website. The site's main page on California trust litigation brings these remedies together in one place.

Recovery of Property and Double-Damages Claims

A beneficiary, an heir or the estate's representative may ask the court to recover property that someone wrongfully took from a trust or a decedent's estate. In Los Angeles County disputes, that property is often a house, a bank or brokerage account, a business interest, or personal belongings that disappeared around the time of a death.

Probate Code section 859 adds a significant remedy. If a court finds that a person has in bad faith wrongfully taken, concealed or disposed of property belonging to a trust or a decedent's estate (among others), or has taken, concealed or disposed of the property by undue influence in bad faith or through elder or dependent adult financial abuse as defined in the Welfare and Institutions Code, that person is liable for twice the value of the property recovered by an action under that part of the Code. Separately, except as otherwise required by law, the person may, in the court's discretion, be liable for reasonable attorney's fees and costs. Neither result is automatic: double liability depends on the court making one of those specific findings, and fees remain discretionary. These remedies add to any other remedies available by law.

Where the dispute involves a probate estate rather than a trust, the person in charge is the personal representative, often called the executor or administrator. Under Probate Code section 8502, a personal representative may be removed for any of these causes: wasting, embezzling, mismanaging or committing a fraud on the estate, or being about to do so; being incapable of properly executing the duties or otherwise not qualified; wrongfully neglecting the estate or long neglecting to perform any act as personal representative; removal otherwise being necessary to protect the estate or interested persons; and any other cause provided by statute.

Allegations of elder or dependent adult financial abuse frequently surface alongside trust and estate claims in Los Angeles County cases, particularly where assets moved during the last years of a parent's life. For a family member who saw an account drained or a deed change hands, it can help to know that the same court proceeding may address both the trust dispute and the alleged abuse.

How Los Angeles County Trust Disputes Proceed Through the Courts

Most trust disputes in Los Angeles County begin with a petition filed in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles under Probate Code section 17200 or another provision that fits the claim. The general sequence looks like this:

1. Petition. The petitioner files a written request describing the dispute and the orders sought.
2. Notice. Interested persons, such as the trustee, other beneficiaries and certain heirs, are given notice of the petition and the hearing.
3. Response. Those persons may file written objections or responses.
4. Hearing. The court considers the papers and, where the matter is contested, may set further proceedings, including evidentiary hearings.
5. Order. The court rules, using its section 17206 authority to make orders necessary or proper to resolve what is presented.

Court timing and local procedures vary, and they are set by the court rather than by this page.

Trustee compensation sometimes becomes its own front in the dispute, especially once litigation increases the trustee's workload. Under Probate Code section 15681, if the trust instrument does not specify compensation, the trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation under the circumstances. California law also bars a trustee from charging an increased fee without first giving at least 60 days' written notice to the beneficiaries the law specifies, and a section 17200 petition served before that period expires holds the increase back until the court orders otherwise or the petition is dismissed.

For anyone in Southern California reading the statutes directly, the full Probate Code is published by California Legislative Information, and the California Courts self-help resources describe court procedures in general terms.

Finding Trust Litigation Counsel in Los Angeles County

Contested trust and estate proceedings are a distinct area of practice. Not every attorney who handles estate planning or routine probate administration also handles trust contests, removal petitions or property recovery actions, so the question of who has worked on disputed matters is a fair one to ask.

Several public and professional resources exist:

• The Los Angeles County Bar Association operates a lawyer referral service that includes trust and estate litigation.
• The State Bar of California maintains a public directory of licensed California attorneys, where license status can be checked, along with information about its certified specialist program.
• The California Lawyers Association Trusts and Estates Section is a professional organization whose members include attorneys who handle trust and estate disputes.

This site also accepts inquiries about trust and probate disputes in Los Angeles County and may pass them to attorneys who handle trust litigation matters, each of whom decides independently whether to respond.

Discussing a Trust or Probate Dispute in Los Angeles County

A dispute in the Superior Court of California, County of Los Angeles often turns on details that are easy to overlook: the date a trustee's notification was served, whether trust terms were delivered, what any accounts disclosed, and when an amendment was signed and by whom. A consultation with an attorney would typically look at those documents and dates, the trustee's or executor's conduct, and the property involved. For readers whose matter is an uncontested administration or planning a new trust, this page is not the right resource. To ask about a contested matter, contact California Trust Litigation Lawyers to request a consultation about your dispute.