What is a trustee?

A trustee is a person or entity (such as a bank) that is put in charge of certain responsibilities such as: securing the assets of the trust, engaging with a financial advisor or investment firm (or making investment decisions themselves depending on the complexity of the trust assets and the trustee’s personal experience), hiring an attorney to navigate trust compliance, hiring an accountant to prepare state and federal income tax returns for the trust, make distributions from the trust for the payments of bills and expenses, and make a final division of trust and distributions to children once they reach a given age (as instructed in the trust document).

Independent Trustees are persons and/or entities that are responsible for administering your trust, but are not named as beneficiaries. While some trusts require independent trustees, others use independent trustees to primarily avoid a conflict of interest that may otherwise exist if the Trustee were to also be a beneficiary of the trust.