What Your Attorney Needs From You to Send the Trust Notice

Your attorney cannot prepare the required trust notice from the trust document alone. We also need a complete list of the deceased grantor’s beneficiaries and legal heirs, together with the best current address available for each person.

Beneficiaries are generally identified in the trust. Heirs may not appear in the trust at all, so the family information needed to identify them usually must come from the successor trustee.

When our firm handles the trust administration, we prepare and mail the statutory notice for the trustee. Your part is to give us complete and accurate information about the people who may be entitled to receive it.

Why the Trust Document Is Not Enough

The trust tells us who the beneficiaries are. California law also requires notice to the deceased grantor’s heirs. Those two groups often overlap, but they are not always the same.

An heir is a person who would inherit under California’s intestate succession rules if the deceased person had no estate plan. A person can be an heir even when the trust intentionally leaves that person nothing.

For example, suppose a parent’s trust leaves everything to three children but intentionally omits a fourth child. The omitted child is an heir entitled to receive the statutory notice. The trust may not identify that child at all. Unless the family tells the attorney about the person, the attorney may have no way to know the person exists.

That is why preparing the notice requires two kinds of information. The attorney reviews the trust and applies the law. The trustee supplies the family information that may not appear in the documents.

Start by Identifying Everyone Named to Receive Trust Property

Read the trust and every amendment. Identify each person or organization named to receive anything from the trust, whether immediately or if another beneficiary does not survive.

Include beneficiaries who receive specific gifts and residual beneficiaries.

Include charities, schools, churches, or other organizations named in the trust. Give the complete list to your attorney. Your attorney will determine which of those people and organizations must receive the statutory notice.

• Full legal name
• Relationship to the deceased grantor, if any
• Current mailing address
• Telephone number and email address
• Any uncertainty about whether the person is living or where the person can be found
• Every beneficiary named in the trust and all amendments
• Every contingent beneficiary and named charity or institution
• Every child of the deceased grantor, including children from prior relationships and estranged or adopted children
• Descendants of any child who died before the grantor
• Other relatives who may matter if the grantor left no descendants
• Full legal name, relationship, current address, telephone number, and email address for each person
• A note identifying every uncertain family relationship
• A record of the efforts made to locate anyone whose address is unknown

Build the Heir List Separately

Do not assume that everyone entitled to notice appears in the trust. Work through the deceased person’s family tree independently of the trust terms.

Begin with all children, including children from prior relationships, estranged children, and legally adopted children. Stepchildren who were never adopted generally are not treated the same as children for intestate succession, but tell your attorney about them if the family history is unclear.

If a child died before the grantor, identify that child’s descendants. Depending on the family structure, those grandchildren may take the deceased child’s place in the line of succession.

If the deceased person had no descendants, the analysis can move to parents, siblings, nieces and nephews, grandparents, aunts and uncles, cousins, or other relatives. Do not try to make the legal determination yourself. Give the attorney the family facts and let the attorney determine who qualifies as an heir.

Tell your attorney about uncertain or uncomfortable facts. A half-sibling you have only heard about, a child who has been estranged for decades, an unclear adoption, or a relative no one has contacted in years should be disclosed rather than filtered out.

Find the Best Current Contact Information You Can

For anyone you genuinely cannot locate, tell your attorney rather than silently leaving the person off the list. Keep notes showing what you tried, including addresses checked, relatives contacted, online searches performed, returned mail, and the last known address you found.

California law addresses beneficiaries and heirs who cannot be located after reasonable diligence. Whether the search has been sufficient is a legal question for your attorney. In some administrations, a professional locator or genealogist may be needed.

What the Attorney Does With Your List

Once you provide the names, relationships, and contact information, the attorney reviews the trust and the family information to determine who is legally entitled to notice.

The attorney then prepares the notice with the required statutory language and mails it to each recipient at the most recently known address.

If someone entitled to notice is discovered later, tell the attorney immediately. That person generally must still be mailed a notice.

Why This Needs to Happen Early

When a death causes a revocable trust, or a portion of it, to become irrevocable, the trustee generally must mail the notice within 60 days.

Different timing rules can apply when someone entitled to notice is discovered afterward.

Sixty days can pass quickly. Reconstructing a family tree, finding current addresses, and resolving uncertainties often takes longer than trustees expect. Begin the list during the first days of the administration, even while other information is still being gathered.

The legal requirements of the notice itself are explained in What Is Probate Code §16061.7? This article addresses the practical information your attorney needs from you so the notice can be prepared correctly.

Where This Fits in Your Early Weeks as Trustee

Compiling this list is one of several tasks that fall in the earliest stage of an administration, alongside the other items covered in The First 30 Days as a California Successor Trustee.

For the broader sequence this fits into, see What Happens After Someone Dies With a Living Trust in California?

A Checklist Before You Send the List to Your Attorney

Use this checklist before handing off the information:

• Every beneficiary named in the trust and all amendments
• Every contingent beneficiary and named charity or institution
• Every child of the deceased grantor, including children from prior relationships and estranged or adopted children
• Descendants of any child who died before the grantor
• Other relatives who may matter if the grantor left no descendants
• Full legal name, relationship, current address, telephone number, and email address for each person
• A note identifying every uncertain family relationship
• A record of the efforts made to locate anyone whose address is unknown

Take a Breath

Don't get intimidated by the scope of this assignment. For the majority of trust administrations we have done, and we have done hundreds, we only need the deceased grantor's children's contact information. Sometimes there may be a disinherited child who is an heir and not a beneficiary, or a deceased child whose children need to be notified, but in most cases, the notice will go to the children, who are also the beneficiaries.

Common Questions

What If a Beneficiary or Heir Is a Minor?

Include the minor’s name and date of birth, if known, together with the name and contact information of the parent or legal guardian. The attorney will determine how the notice should be directed.

What If I Am Unsure Whether Someone Was Adopted or Whether a Marriage Was Valid?

State what you know and what you do not know. Do not guess. The attorney can determine what records or additional information may be needed.

Do I Include Someone Who Already Knows About the Trust?

Yes. Formal notice is not excused because the person knows about the trust, expects an inheritance, or is getting along with the trustee.

What If I Find Another Relative After I Already Gave the List to the Attorney?

Tell the attorney immediately. It is better to investigate and add a person promptly than to allow a possible omission to remain unaddressed.

The Practical Bottom Line

Your attorney can prepare and mail the Probate Code §16061.7 notice on the trustee’s behalf, but the attorney depends on you to identify the family members and beneficiaries who may be entitled to receive it.

Take the heir side of the list as seriously as the beneficiary side. The people not named in the trust are often the easiest to miss, and they may still be legally entitled to notice.

Moving Forward

If you are serving as successor trustee of a California trust and need help with the trust administration, contact us or call (800) 394-1988 for a free initial call with one of our attorneys.