The trustee’s failure to comply with a reasonable request for information may be a breach of the trustee’s fiduciary duty to you as a beneficiary, which can be the basis of a lawsuit.  In addition, the Texas Trust Code gives the beneficiaries the right to demand a formal accounting once a year, in which the trustee must report all trust property that the trustee is administering, all receipts, disbursements and other transactions, the name and location of the banks where the cash is deposited, and all known liabilities of the trust.  The beneficiaries’ statutory right to an accounting can be enforced in court.  Also, the trust instrument itself may require the trustee to account periodically or may give the beneficiaries the right to request more frequent accountings.

Last updated on January 6, 2011 by Glenn Karisch