Trust Litigation in Santa Barbara County

If you are in a dispute over a trust in Santa Barbara County, the case is heard by the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara. California's Probate Code sets the rules statewide: who may file, what deadlines apply to a trust contest, what trustees owe beneficiaries, and what the court may order when a trustee breaches those duties.

Most people facing a trust dispute in Santa Barbara County arrive here after something has already shifted. A parent has died and a sibling now controls the trust. A trustee's notification has come in the mail. Or a late-life amendment has left you with far less than you were told to expect. Requests for information may have gone unanswered for months, and you may not know whether what you are seeing is a misunderstanding or a breach of trust. You may also be the trustee, facing accusations you believe are unfair. This page explains the court that hears these disputes, the California law that applies to each side, and the deadlines that can close a door. It does not take sides.

Where Trust Disputes Are Filed in Santa Barbara County

Trust and estate cases arising in Santa Barbara County are heard by the Superior Court of California, County of Santa Barbara. That court decides contested trust matters and contested probate matters. It applies the same statewide Probate Code that every California county applies. A dispute connected to a trust administered in Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Goleta, Carpinteria or the Santa Ynez Valley is still a Santa Barbara County matter before that one Superior Court.

The court's authority over trusts begins with Probate Code section 17200(a). With an exception in section 15800, it allows a trustee or a beneficiary to petition the court about the "internal affairs" of a trust. Internal affairs means how the trust is read, run and distributed. A trustee or beneficiary may also petition the court to decide whether a trust exists at all. The petition is the basic vehicle for most trust litigation in the county. The Probate Code 17200 petition is covered in more detail on this site.

Official, statewide self-help material on probate and trust matters is published by the California courts and listed in the Sources below.

What Trust Litigation in Santa Barbara County Involves

Trust litigation means legal proceedings in the Superior Court to resolve a dispute about one of these things:

• a trust's terms
• a trust's administration
• the conduct of the people responsible for the trust

In practice, it covers disputes over a trust's validity, a trustee's conduct, a beneficiary's rights and the distribution of trust assets. Those assets may be a house, other real estate, a business, accounts or personal property.

The proceedings available under Probate Code section 17200(b) are expressly "not limited to" the ones it names. The named proceedings include:

• interpreting the trust instrument
• determining the validity of a trust provision
• deciding who the beneficiaries are and who receives property at termination
• settling the trustee's accounts and passing on the trustee's acts
• instructing the trustee
• compelling the trustee to provide the trust's terms or information

The disputes that most often reach the court fall into a few categories:

• Trust contests. A trust contest is a challenge to whether a trust or an amendment is valid at all, for example because the person who made it lacked capacity or was subject to fraud or undue influence.
• Breach of fiduciary duty. A fiduciary is someone legally bound to act for another's benefit. A trustee is a fiduciary, and a breach is a failure to meet those duties.
• Accounting disputes. An accounting is the trustee's formal report of what came in, what went out and what remains. These disputes are about whether an account is owed or whether it is accurate.
• Trustee removal. A removal case asks the court to replace the trustee.
• Undue influence claims. These argue that someone's pressure replaced the trust-maker's own wishes.

When a trustee commits a breach of trust, or threatens to commit one, Probate Code section 16420(a) lets a beneficiary or cotrustee start a proceeding for any appropriate purpose it lists. Those purposes are:

• to compel the trustee to perform the trustee's duties
• to enjoin, meaning stop, the breach
• to compel the trustee to redress the breach by payment of money or otherwise
• to appoint a receiver or temporary trustee to take possession of the trust property and administer the trust
• to remove the trustee
• subject to section 18100, to set aside the trustee's acts
• to reduce or deny the trustee's compensation
• subject to section 18100, to impose an equitable lien or a constructive trust on trust property
• subject to section 18100, to trace wrongfully disposed trust property and recover it or its proceeds

A constructive trust is a court order treating property as held for its rightful owner. Section 16420(b) adds that these remedies do not prevent resort to any other appropriate remedy under statute or common law.

Contesting a Trust in Santa Barbara County

The trustee's notification is often the first formal document a family member receives, and it can start a deadline. Under Probate Code section 16061.7(a), a trustee must serve this notification in the events the section lists. They include:

• when a revocable trust, or part of one, becomes irrevocable because a settlor (the person who created the trust) has died
• whenever the trustee of an irrevocable trust changes

The list is partial.

Once you have been served with that notification after a settlor's death under section 16061.7(a)(1), Probate Code section 16061.8 sets the contest deadline. You cannot bring an action to contest the trust after the later of two dates:

• 120 days from the date the notification is served on you, or
• 60 days from the date a copy of the trust's terms is delivered to you during that 120-day period.

The deadline runs from service of the notification or delivery of the terms. It does not run from the death or from the date the trust became irrevocable. For many people in Santa Barbara County, the envelope with the notification is the moment the dispute becomes real. The date it was served is worth recording. More on how to contest a trust appears elsewhere on this site.

Presumed undue influence. Probate Code section 21380 creates a presumption for certain gifts. A provision making a donative transfer (a gift under the instrument) to a person section 21380(a) describes is presumed to be the product of fraud or undue influence. Those persons include:

• the person who drafted the instrument
• a person in a fiduciary relationship with the transferor who transcribed the instrument or caused it to be transcribed
• 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
• certain relatives, cohabitants, employees and law-firm associates of those people

The presumption shifts the burden of proof. The beneficiary can generally rebut it with clear and convincing evidence. For a transfer to the drafter and to the people section 21380(c) associates with the drafter, however, the presumption is conclusive, unless a statutory exception applies. A beneficiary who fails to rebut the presumption bears all costs of the proceeding, including reasonable attorney's fees. The presumption does not apply to every gift to a caregiver, relative or helper. It applies only to the categories the statute describes. "Undue influence" itself takes its meaning, by reference, from Probate Code section 86.

No contest clauses. A no contest clause is a trust provision that penalizes a beneficiary who challenges the trust. Under Probate Code section 21311(a), it can be enforced only against these contests:

• a direct contest brought without probable cause
• if the clause expressly says so, a pleading challenging a transfer on the ground that the property was not the transferor's
• if the clause expressly says so, the filing of a creditor's claim or an action based on it

Under section 21311(b), probable cause exists if, at the time of filing, the facts known to the contestant would cause a reasonable person to believe there is a reasonable likelihood the 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.

Wills. When the dispute concerns a will that has already been admitted to probate, Probate Code section 8270 applies. It allows an interested person to petition to revoke the probate within 120 days after admission. Two groups cannot use this route: a party to a will contest, and a person who had actual notice of a will contest in time to join it.

Trustee Duties, Accounting Rights, and Removal in Santa Barbara County

Beneficiaries who suspect a problem, and trustees trying to answer one, both start from the same set of duties.

Loyalty. Under Probate Code section 16004(a), a trustee may not use or deal with trust property for the trustee's own profit or for any purpose unconnected with the trust. A trustee also may not take part in any transaction in which the trustee has an interest adverse to the beneficiary. Under section 16004(c), a transaction between the trustee and a beneficiary that gives the trustee an advantage is presumed to violate the trustee's fiduciary duties. That presumption shifts the burden of proof. It does not apply to an agreement about the trustee's hiring or compensation.

Information. Section 16060 requires the trustee to keep beneficiaries reasonably informed of the trust and its administration. Section 16061 generally requires the trustee to report requested information relevant to a beneficiary's interest on reasonable request, except as section 16069 provides.

Accounts. Under Probate Code section 16062, the duty to account applies at least annually, at termination and upon a change of trustee. That duty runs to each beneficiary to whom income or principal is required, or authorized in the trustee's discretion, to be currently distributed. It is subject to exceptions in sections 16062 and 16064. Not every beneficiary is owed an annual account. Even where the trust instrument or a beneficiary's writing waives the account, section 16064 lets the court compel the trustee to account. That requires a showing that a material breach of the trust has reasonably likely occurred.

Compelling a response. Section 17200(b)(7) allows a petition to compel information when both of these are true:

• the trustee has not provided it within 60 days after the beneficiary's reasonable written request, and
• the beneficiary has not received it within the six months before the request.

A petition to compel an account works the same way. It is available when the trustee has failed to submit a requested account within 60 days after written request and no account was made in the prior six months. In deciding such a petition, Probate Code section 17206 lets the court make any orders necessary or proper to dispose of the matters presented, including appointing a temporary trustee.

Removal. Probate Code section 15642(a) allows removal in three ways:

• under the trust instrument
• by the court on its own motion
• on a section 17200 petition by a settlor, cotrustee or beneficiary

Section 15642(b) lists grounds that include:

• a breach of trust
• insolvency or unfitness
• hostility or lack of cooperation among cotrustees that impairs administration
• failing or declining to act
• excessive compensation

That list is partial.

Surcharge. A surcharge is a money judgment against a trustee for a breach. Under section 16440(a), a breaching trustee is chargeable with whichever of these is appropriate:

• any resulting loss or depreciation in value, with interest
• any profit the trustee made through the breach, with interest
• any profit that would have accrued to the trust estate if the loss of profit resulted from the breach

A surcharge is not automatic. Section 16440(b) lets the court excuse a trustee who acted reasonably and in good faith under the circumstances as known to the trustee, in whole or in part, if it would be equitable to do so.

Time limits. Probate Code section 16460(a) has two branches.

• If a beneficiary receives an interim or final account, or other written report, that adequately discloses the claim, the claim is barred unless a proceeding begins within three years after receipt.
• If no account or report adequately discloses the claim, or none is received, the three years run from when the beneficiary discovered, or reasonably should have discovered, the subject of the claim.

Recovery of Property and Double-Damages Claims

Disputes in Santa Barbara County do not always stop at paperwork. Sometimes the question is where a house, an account or family belongings actually went.

Probate Code section 859 provides a remedy for these situations. It applies to property belonging to a trust or a decedent's estate, among others, including the property of a conservatee, a minor, an elder or a dependent adult. To apply it, the court must find that a person did one of the following:

• in bad faith wrongfully took, concealed or disposed of the property
• took, concealed or disposed of it by undue influence in bad faith
• took, concealed or disposed of it through elder or dependent adult financial abuse, as section 859 describes

After such a finding, the person is liable for twice the value of the property recovered by an action under that part of the code. Separately, the court may in its discretion award reasonable attorney's fees and costs against the person found liable, except as otherwise required by law. Neither double recovery nor fees is automatic, and both depend on the court's findings. These remedies add to, rather than replace, other remedies available by law.

The section 859 path is different from the section 21380 presumption. Section 21380 concerns whether a gift written into a trust or other instrument is presumed invalid because of who received it. Section 859 concerns whether someone wrongfully took, hid or disposed of property, and what that person owes as a result. A single dispute can raise both. The California trust litigation attorney page on this site discusses how these remedies fit together.

Disputes Arising in Santa Barbara County

This page covers disputes arising in Santa Barbara County, whether the trust, the property or the family is connected to Santa Barbara, Santa Maria, Lompoc, Goleta, Carpinteria or the Santa Ynez Valley.

This site covers disputes only. It does not give estate-planning advice. It does not explain how to create or amend a trust, and it does not cover trust or probate administration where no one disagrees.

Discussing a Trust or Probate Dispute in Santa Barbara County

A dispute over a Santa Barbara County trust often turns on a few concrete things:

• the date a notification was served
• what the trust and any late amendments actually say
• who drafted or transcribed them
• what written requests were made and when
• what any account or report disclosed

An attorney looking at a dispute like this would want the trust documents, the notification, the correspondence with the trustee and records showing where the property went. If you are still unsure whether you have a dispute at all, reading the related pages on this site first may be more useful than a call.

To discuss a dispute like this with an attorney, you can request a consultation about your dispute through California Trust Litigation Lawyers.