Hiring a trust company as agent

In my last few seminars, I have seen an increase in the number of questions I'm being asked about hiring a trust company to help an executor administer an estate. I also noticed a discussion about this today on LinkedIn. So I thought I'd talk about it a bit here to give people a better idea of what the idea actually entails.

The basic idea is that when someone passes away, and their executor feels overwhelmed by the work or the responsibility or the time commitment, they hire a trust company. At Scotia Trust, we call the arrangement "Estate Assist". The executor is still the executor throughout the entire transaction.

When the executor first approaches the trust company, there is a detailed discussion about how much of the work the executor wants the trust company to do. Quite often, the executor wants to hand off the whole thing. For example, a person in Ontario who is the executor for an estate in Alberta might find it impossible to deal with from that distance and might want the trust company to take care of everything.

Other executors need less work done. Sometimes they get part way through the estate themselves and realize they just can't manage it. They hire the trust company to take over from where they left off. The arrangement is flexible and is designed to address the needs of the executor. The fee is also less when the trust company does less work.

As mentioned above, the executor remains the executor. This leads many people to ask "how it works". As an example, the trust company will compile all of the information needed for a grant of probate and arrange for it to be prepared and filed, but it is the executor who still has to sign the paperwork. If the deceased's home has to be sold, the trust company will find a realtor, get appraisals etc but it's up to the executor which offer is accepted.It's an interactive, co-operative arrangement.

Trust officers have a very unusual job, but the ones I know love the challenge of combining legal knowledge with practical solutions.

Remember that it costs nothing to call a trust company to ask what arrangements could be made in your case and to find out the fees. Feel free to call me or any of my fellow Scotiabankers to talk about it.