Find a missing trust

Alright, since y'all know everything about everything, my MIL left my wife a trust when she passed - allegedly. No information about said trust exists - the surviving husband has dementia, MIL did not have a will, estate planner, or financial advisor. She was a hoarder, so digging through the house looking for any documents was fruitless, and we don't entirely trust the stepdaughter in charge of going through everything anyways. It could have anywhere from zero dollars in it to dozens. Can such things be found by only the information in a death certificate? Each state does have a website for lost assets, and it is not listed in there under either my wife's name or her mom's. 

I am nearly certain those things are filed with the county or state with a will, so you can call municipalities nearby and ask around.

tuna55 said:

I am nearly certain those things are filed with the county or state with a will, so you can call municipalities nearby and ask around.

That'd be too easy - no will. A [living] trust is a totally separate entity from a will anyways and apparently Michigan does not require trusts to be registered. They can be though, so I can check with her county and see if it was ever registered. 

Edit: No record in her county. I did find where her husband had been named in another trust, so I thought to reach out to that lawyer that filed it to see if my MIL used him, too, but apparently he is a relative and was already asked about the trust and said he did not know anything about it. So that almost turned out to be a good lead, but not quite. 

You can put a "Trust" as the beneficiary of a life insurance policy and it won't go into any other record until one of the heirs needs to collect.   For example "Trust of Jon Doe". 

But I know that is associated with an actual heir in my policies for my children but their mother gets to control distribution. 

   Jon Doe's heirs, through either a will or Intestate judges decision, become the owners of the Trust.    

In this case, it is a living trust with named grantor and grantees, it just was not registered with the county, and no one knows what attorney or financial institution created it. 

Having been through this with Dad's cousin here in Florida, if you don't have the paper it is on it doesn't exist.  Cousin was also a hoarder, and we went through everything.  We didn't find the most up to date trust, but we found one that superceded this clown that was trying to milk the estate for what little there was.

In reply to Mr_Asa :

I don't know how accurate that is. It is certainly true for some things like bonds, but a copy of the trust will be held by the attorney or financial institution that set it up. A trust is more like a bank account that belongs to someone whether or not they know it. Now, effectively, it doesn't exist if you don't know it does, but that becomes more philosophical than literal. 

Maybe look at their tax return.  The trust may have 1099 that got reported.

In reply to cyow5 :

And when the clown trying to milk the estate is the disbarred lawyer that wrote the trust?

Mr_Asa said:

In reply to cyow5 :

And when the clown trying to milk the estate is the disbarred lawyer that wrote the trust?

That's obviously very specific to your case, and I really am sorry you had to go through all that. What I said applied to cases where corruption wasn't involved, like mine. Mine is more related to trying to recover from sloppy record keeping

cdowd (Forum Supporter) said:

Maybe look at their tax return.  The trust may have 1099 that got reported.

That's an extremely good point and might normally work, but ... 

the trust was only established last year, and this year would be the first year it would show up on taxes. MIL died before filing taxes, and her husband is not aware of the trust due to his mental state. There is still a minuscule chance she told her tax preparer ahead of time, but we'll have to dig to find out even if she normally hired someone or did it herself. She was not the proactive type though. 

Any real estate should have been transferred to the trust, county courthouse should lave a record of the date it was transferred to trust ownership from the Individual

TRoglodyte said:

Any real estate should have been transferred to the trust, county courthouse should lave a record of the date it was transferred to trust ownership from the Individual

That's just one use of a trust. Nearly all property was in her husband's name, and anything that was joint goes straight to him anyways. Her way of ensuring her daughters got a share was to create the trust, and then she funded it (hopefully) while alive. Everything in the trust is cash, so no easy public record like real estate. 

It has to be filed somewhere. One other thing, we have a trust set up for our kids that doesn't exist - yet. It is automatically created upon our deaths. Our lawyer, our financial advisor and our county have a copy.

Someone has to have the thing. You need to call around in municipal courts, and find a real person. It's likely different in terms of how it is stored and accessed in each jurisdiction. Start calling and knocking on doors.

https://bizfluent.com/how-7768876-locate-family-trust.html

https://www.thebalance.com/who-gets-a-copy-of-a-trust-after-the-trustmaker-dies-3505381

Doesn't there have to be an executor or something to take the action? A trust without sending it to someone seems pretty useless.

The executor is probably my wife or her sister, but the holder of the trust will not know to contact her if no one tells them MIL died. I know sometimes that is automated but I don't believe it always is. She lives in a town of 150,000 people, so calling every bank and financial advisor is about our only option, and that is not going to be fun. Not impossible though. I spoke with an attorney today who confirmed that. Hurray...
 

In Michigan though, there is no requirement to be filed with the county, so literally the only person alive who knows where it is is the drafter. 

Have you had any success?

tuna55 said:

Have you had any success?

 

Just now saw this - nope. I spoke to a couple lawyers around here, and it sounds like cold-calling will be our only option. Even then, they legally cannot tell me anything about the nature of their clients' accounts, so basically I can just say "hey, so-and-so died to notify the executor of any trusts you have for them". If they ask for a death certificate, that'll be my only way of finding out legally. Granted, my wife did have one major national bank tell her what accounts they had for her mom (none of which were a trust) which is massively illegal without power of attorney, so maybe I can get someone similarly loose-lipped. 

So yeah. If you leave your kids any money, at least tell them where it is.