California Trust Accounting and Breach of Fiduciary Duty Attorney

Reviewed by Mark L. Russakow, Founder, Trust Law Partners, LLP

You knew something was wrong before you could prove it. The distributions slowed, then stopped. The trustee stopped returning calls, and the few answers you did get never quite added up. 

When someone controls money that belongs to you and will not explain where it went, that silence is more than frustrating. Under California trust accounting requirements, it can also be a breach the court will make the trustee answer for.

Trust Law Partners represents beneficiaries, heirs, and families across California in disputes with trustees over accounting failures and breaches of fiduciary duty. We work for the people a trust is supposed to protect. We do not represent trustees, banks, or trust companies, so the attorney reviewing your case answers to you and no one on the other side. 

If a trustee has gone dark, mishandled trust assets, or moved money that should have reached you, you can compel a full accounting and hold that trustee personally responsible in probate court.

Our practice is built for trusts and estates worth $1 million or more, where the trustee controls assets such as real property, brokerage and investment accounts, or an ownership stake in a family business. If the trust is smaller, or the question is routine administration rather than a dispute with the trustee, we are likely not the right fit, and a general probate attorney may serve you better.

Call (626) 956-3500 for a free case review.

Do You Have a Right to a Trust Accounting?

Yes. If you are a beneficiary entitled to current distributions of income or principal from a California trust, the trustee owes you a formal accounting at least once a year, when the trust terminates, and whenever the trustee changes. If a trustee refuses or delays, understanding your accounting and beneficiary rights can help you decide whether to ask the court to step in.

That duty comes from Probate Code section 16062, and a trustee cannot quietly opt out of it. A few narrow exceptions exist under section 16064, but a busy schedule and a bad attitude are not among them.

A proper accounting is not a one-line summary or a stack of bank statements dropped on your lap.

What a Real Accounting Has to Show

Probate Code section 16063 spells out what the trustee must put in writing: every receipt and disbursement of income and principal, a statement of the trust's assets and liabilities, the trustee's compensation, amounts paid to anyone the trustee hired, and notice of your right to ask the court to review the account. If what you received leaves out transactions, glosses over where large sums went, or cannot be squared against the trust's own records, that is a signal worth taking seriously.

Separate from the annual account, the trustee also has to keep you reasonably informed under section 16060 and hand over specific information when you ask for it under section 16061.

When a Trustee Can Tell You No

There is one situation where the answer really is no. While a living trust can still be revoked and the person who created it is alive and competent, the trustee's duties run to that person, not to you, under Probate Code section 15800. 

Once the trust becomes irrevocable, usually when the settlor dies or is found incapacitated, your right to an accounting switches on. If a trustee is hiding behind section 15800 after that point, the excuse no longer holds. Knowing which side of that line your trust sits on is often the first thing we sort out.

What Counts as a Breach of Fiduciary Duty?

A breach of fiduciary duty happens when a trustee puts their own interests, or someone else's, ahead of the beneficiaries and the trust suffers for it. A trustee in California is legally bound to act with loyalty and reasonable care, to keep trust money separate from personal money, and to treat beneficiaries even-handedly. 

When a trustee crosses those lines, Probate Code section 16420 gives beneficiaries a way to go to court for it.

The patterns we see most often are not subtle once someone looks closely.

• Self-dealing. The trustee sells trust property to a friend below market, leases it to their own company, or pays themselves fees the trust never authorized.
• Commingling. Trust funds land in the trustee's personal account, and suddenly it is hard to tell whose money paid for what.
• Refusing to account. Repeated silence after a written request is itself a breach, and it often hides a bigger one.
• Sitting on assets. Property left to rot, investments ignored for years, or cash left idle while its value erodes.
• Playing favorites. One beneficiary gets paid and informed while the others are frozen out.

Not every loss is a breach. A trustee who made a reasonable, good-faith decision that happened to lose money may be off the hook under the standard in section 16440. The question we dig into is whether the trustee acted carefully and honestly, or whether the loss traces back to disloyalty or neglect.

How the Process Works When You Take a Trustee to Court

The main tool is a petition filed in the probate division of the superior court in the county where the trust is administered. Under Probate Code section 17200, a beneficiary can ask the court to settle the trustee's accounts, compel an accounting, and rule on whether the trustee's conduct crossed the line. It is the front door to almost every trust dispute in California.

From there, the path depends on what the accounting reveals.

Forcing the Accounting

If the trustee has ignored your requests, the petition asks the court to order one under section 17200(b)(7). Once a judge signs that order, the trustee is no longer choosing whether to comply. Refusing a court order carries consequences the trustee will feel directly, and the account they finally produce becomes the record everything else is measured against.

Surcharge, Removal, and Getting Money Back

When the numbers show real harm, section 16420 lets the court do more than scold. A judge can order the trustee to repay the trust, remove the trustee outright, suspend their powers, deny or claw back their fees, and impose a constructive trust to trace property that was wrongfully moved. 

The measure of what the trustee owes comes from section 16440: losses to the trust with interest, any profit the trustee pocketed through the breach, and profit the trust should have earned. The aim is to make the trust whole and put a replacement fiduciary in place who will actually do the job.

We build these cases from the paper. Bank records, deeds, tax filings, and the trust's own accounting either line up or they do not, and California probate judges have seen enough to know the difference.

What to Expect, Start to Finish

Most trust disputes take months, not weeks, and the timeline depends on how much the trustee fights and how tangled the finances are. A straightforward petition to compel an accounting can move quickly. 

A contested surcharge case involving years of transactions and expert analysis takes longer, moving through discovery, depositions, and sometimes trial. Many resolve by settlement once the trustee sees that the records are being pulled apart, though we prepare every matter as if a judge will decide it.

Your first consultation with us costs nothing. You sit down with an attorney who handles these cases, walk through what happened, and leave understanding your options and how the firm would take the matter forward. No pressure, no obligation to hire us.

Call (626) 956-3500 to talk through your situation at no cost.

Why Beneficiaries Choose Trust Law Partners

Choosing a firm to fight a trustee is not about slogans. It comes down to whose side the lawyer is on and whether they do this work every day.

• We only represent the people trusts are meant to serve. Beneficiaries, heirs, and families. Never trustees, executors, or the institutions on the other side, which means no divided loyalty and no conflicts.
• Trust and estate litigation is our focus. This is contested probate work, not estate planning with a litigation department bolted on.
• A partner handles your case. You are not handed off to whoever is free that week.
• We take on high-value trust disputes. Our cases involve trusts and estates of $1 million or more, often holding California real estate, investment portfolios, or interests in closely held businesses, where an incomplete accounting can hide serious losses.
• Your first meeting is free. You get a real evaluation before you decide anything.

That combination is what lets us tell a beneficiary early whether a case is worth bringing.

The Attorneys Handling Your Case

Trust Law Partners is led by attorneys who spend their days in California probate courtrooms representing beneficiaries.

Mark L. Russakow, Founder. Mark founded the firm to represent beneficiaries and families in contested trust and estate matters. He earned his undergraduate degree at the University of California, Irvine, and his law degree at Loyola Law School, Los Angeles. He is admitted to practice before all California state courts, the United States District Court for the Central District of California, and the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals.

Jeffrey R. Loew, Managing Partner. Jeff manages the firm's litigation practice and represents beneficiaries and heirs in trust accounting disputes, breach-of-fiduciary-duty claims, and trustee removal proceedings throughout California.

When you hire the firm, one of them is accountable for your case from the first meeting through resolution.

What the Court Can Order in a Successful Case

California law gives probate courts real power to correct trustee misconduct. Depending on the facts, a beneficiary's petition can result in a compelled accounting, repayment of losses to the trust with interest, forfeiture of the trustee's fees, removal and replacement of the trustee, and orders tracing and returning property that was taken. Where a trustee acted in bad faith in taking or concealing trust property, Probate Code section 859 allows the court to charge that person with twice the value of what was taken, plus attorney's fees in the court's discretion.

Every case turns on its own facts and records, and past outcomes in other matters do not predict what a court will do in yours. What we can promise is that we will tell you honestly what your case is worth pursuing and what it is not.

Trust Accounting and Fiduciary Duty Questions, Answered

These are the questions beneficiaries ask most often once they realize a trustee is not being straight with them.

Stop Guessing About Where the Money Went

A trustee counting on your patience is counting on the wrong thing. The longer an accounting stays hidden, the more a beneficiary loses, and California law does not reward the beneficiary who waited. If a trustee has stopped answering to you, let an attorney who does this work look at what you have.

Call (626) 956-3500 for a free case review with Trust Law Partners.