Trusts
 

I know trusts are big in TV so hopefully someone can enlighten me. My parents have a trust and I'm the beneficiary and POA. We went to the bank together to have me added to their checking account for down the road if I need to help out. The bank said it cannot be done because of the trust. My question is what happens later if I should need to access that money for shopping, bills, house repairs or more importantly something extremely costly like assisted living? We couldn't possibly cover expenses such as that on our own. Hopefully, none of this will ever be an issue but it is a concern. I have no experience with trusts and my folks just had this set up a couple of years ago to make things easier for me with avoiding probate. I think I'll probably need to visit their lawyer with them to get clarification but before the wallet comes out thought I'd check here.

Yes, contact the original lawyer, if they are NOT Florida lawyers, IMHO, get a Florida lawyer to make sure everything is in agreement with FL law...

Probably need to visit with an attorney.

"A Trust" should not effect a financial POA. Most POA's include financial authority, but maybe your POA does not cover everything.

Sounds like the trust is a Living Trust, which does go around probate. This definitely does not effect you POA.

Plus............there is also a chance the Banker was misguided. Sad, but somethings you get different answers at different branches of the same bank.

Good Luck.

When my husband's parents set up their trust they did not included the checking account but rather added his name to the account. They could open a new account with you and transfer the funds.

Yes, they used a well known TV lawyer whom I think probably steered them right, I hope anyway. The bank was...horrible. Not only were they incredibly rude but they made it sound like the money was being held hostage. Went to a different branch and had a decent discussion with someone who seemed to be much more knowledgeable but she said we could open up another checking account for the 3 of us but they couldn't transfer their checking account money out of the trust. She said POA can only handle non trust financial and legal issues. She mentioned something about having to petition the court if funds were needed for their care. My poor little dad said he could have saved himself a lot of money and trouble and just hid it all under his mattress.

BTW, the bank told me they don't recommend this because if the parent got in a car accident and got sued then everyone on the checking account could get sued and vice versa. Just an FYI. All this legal junk makes it so hard to just do the right thing. Ugh.

That just does not sound right. That money is theirs and they should be able to draw a check against it to start a new account (at a different bank). That is no different than spending it to pay bills.

Agree. That bank just lost a customer. Have your parents write a check to you and open a joint account at a good bank and say Bye Bye.

Another route to go............Online Banking. If your parent's bonehead bank has Online Banking....sign your parents up for that and from your recliner, you can start to transfer funds.

Good Luck.

Yes that is a great idea also.

We've tried to get them to go the route of online banking but at this stage of the game it's too foreign to them and it scares them with all the identity theft going on. There's no convincing them.

Time to change banks due to how they treated you as well as the ‘legal advice’ about car accident liability they gave you.

The terms of the trust will address who can do what with the property therein. My pure speculation is that only your parents are named as trustees. Their bank account lies within the trust. Your POA is for one or both of them personally, but not for the contents of their trust.

This is correct, they are the trustees and I'm the POA. My dad was under the impression that as POA I could access the trust but apparently he misunderstood. My only concern in all this is when/if I need to handle their affairs, how would I pay for it if I can't access their funds. Bills can be paid online but some things wouldn't be able to be paid that way. Biggest concern is a major health crisis.

I can understand that having been through helping my parents through their final years.

Perhaps the attorney who set up the trust could do the paperwork necessary so that you could do what will need to be done with the least difficulty.

The law firm that created the trust should answer a simple question such as you have. This is nothing more than an explanation to you as how the trust should work.

Generally putting a child (i.e. you) on a parents checking account is a financial risk for the parents. If you get into financial difficulty your creditors could claim all the funds in your parents' checking account.

Maybe the lawyer who put together the POA for your parents didn't include your access to the checking account because he had seen too many cases where children had drained their parents' account. I'm not saying you would but the lawyer was in a position where he had to look out solely for the interests of your parents.

It's probably worth your time and money to go back to that lawyer and come up with a way for you direct the trust to pay your parents bills when they are not able to. Maybe in all the mumbo-jumbo stuff in the trust there already is a way to do that...