Hi all, My mother in law died a week ago. Her Will appoints a public law firm as her executor and trustee. The firm states that they take 5.5% of the gross value of the estate as their fee. My MIL left her estate apportioned 20 / 20 / 20 / 40 between her four adult children. However she also put in place a 20 year right of residence trust for one of her daughters (the 40% beneficiary) to live in the house (ie house cannot be sold in that 20 years unless my SIL dies, marries or moves out of her own accord).
The problem is that the house is very valuable but my MIL's other assets are mininal. There is nowhere near enough cash to cover 5.5% of the value of the house as an executor / trustee fee.
We have not been able to get a straight answer as to whether they intend to try to bill the four beneficiaries for this charge. This is very worrying to us as none of us are in a position to pay $20,000 to $40,000 apiece out of our own money to cover this charge, especially given that any benefit we may actually see from the estate is up to 20 years in the future when the trust is dissolved and the house sold.
Could anyone reassure me that the executor / trustee cannot bill us for their fee from our own private money? We understand that the charge is on the estate but the estate is essentially cashless, consisting almost entirely of a house that cannot be sold except by action of my SIL for 20 years. It seems unjust to us that we could be billed a very sizeable sum for something none of us agreed to (no one knew the terms of the will).
The other question I guess is whether the executor/ trustee can force the early sale of the property despite the terms of the will in order to recoup their fee.
The problem is that the house is very valuable but my MIL's other assets are mininal. There is nowhere near enough cash to cover 5.5% of the value of the house as an executor / trustee fee.
We have not been able to get a straight answer as to whether they intend to try to bill the four beneficiaries for this charge. This is very worrying to us as none of us are in a position to pay $20,000 to $40,000 apiece out of our own money to cover this charge, especially given that any benefit we may actually see from the estate is up to 20 years in the future when the trust is dissolved and the house sold.
Could anyone reassure me that the executor / trustee cannot bill us for their fee from our own private money? We understand that the charge is on the estate but the estate is essentially cashless, consisting almost entirely of a house that cannot be sold except by action of my SIL for 20 years. It seems unjust to us that we could be billed a very sizeable sum for something none of us agreed to (no one knew the terms of the will).
The other question I guess is whether the executor/ trustee can force the early sale of the property despite the terms of the will in order to recoup their fee.
