I am a certified Probate and Trust Specialist through the California Association of Realtors.

A Successor Trustee is that person or persons who are named in the Trust as the people who will be responsible for, in my world, as the parties who deal with the sale of real estate held by the Trust that will be sold. They have other functions as well but for the purposes of this discussion, we will focus on the sale of real estate.

The important steps are:

Consult with the attorney who put the Trust together if you can. If not, engage another attorney. Take your lead from them as to the treatment of real estate assets held in the Trust.

1. Get a copy of the Trust.
2. In the case of a decedent, get a copy of the death certificate.
3. If property is to be sold, discover which local real estate agents have experience with these types of sales, and interview several before choosing one.
4. Determine with your agent what if any repairs or updates need to be made to the property, or those you are willing to do, to increase desirability or value.
5. A preliminary title report should be ordered right away. Your agent does that for you via a local trusted escrow and title company. For me, that is job #1. It’s that important. These reports can take a few days to several weeks to obtain so early planning is important. The “prelim” tells us a lot about the property, most importantly the state of the title. If the property was never recorded into the Trust, then a probate problem could exist with a protracted timeline. It is far better to learn of title issues, mortgages and other title related problems early on as they need to be known and/or solved prior to obtaining a buyer and ideally before advertising the property for sale.
6. Decide what if any reports you are going to obtain for marketing purposes (home inspection etc.) You will benefit in obtaining some basic reports. Offers made with prior knowledge of property condition suppress surprise repair or credit requests later.
7. Successor Trustees are not always working on behalf of someone who has passed away. Sometimes, due to incapacity of the Trustee, Successor Trustees must step in. In these cases, title and escrow providers will require documentation to ascertain your authority to convey real estate, usually a copy of the Trust documents and several doctor’s notes.
8. You and your agent can decide which property disclosures apply to the sale. If you have knowledge of the property, for your own protection you should consider completing a disclosure package to the best of your ability. If you have no knowledge of the property, you can be exempt from disclosure with some caveats. This does not mean there will be no disclosures as there are several disclosures still required by the state of California. Your agent will guide you through this.
9. It is important to note that at the close of escrow, the escrow company can only cut checks or wire proceeds of the sale into a bank account in the exact name of the Trust. They can’t make the check out to or wire the money into any other account name, no exceptions. If the estate doesn’t already have an account for the Trust, you and the attorney will likely agree that a new account should be created for the money to be deposited in via check or a wire from escrow.

Written by me, Sharon Currie, not AI.