Successor Trustee Services
Naming a licensed corporate trustee is one of the most important appointments in your estate plan. Crawford Trust delivers the fiduciary duty, stability, and breadth of estate-planning expertise your family deserves.
Every well-structured estate plan must address how a successor trustee will be appointed if the primary individual trustee passes away, becomes incapacitated, or declines to serve. A corporate trustee is immune to each of these events — it does not die, cannot become incapacitated, and does not decline its duties. That continuity makes a corporate trustee one of the most prudent appointments a grantor can make.
What does a successor trustee provide?
A successor trustee manages and executes your existing trust once the primary trustee — often the grantor — is no longer able to serve. If the trust has minor beneficiaries, the successor trustee may manage trust assets for years, until the beneficiaries reach an age appropriate for distribution. Where the trust instead calls for assets to pass immediately to beneficiaries and the trust to terminate, the successor trustee carries out those terms.
How a successor trustee acts once its appointment is triggered
When the grantor passes away
Typical successor trustee duties include:
- Managing the probate process, if applicable.
- Locating and securing all assets titled to the trust.
- Collecting life insurance proceeds and retirement accounts where the trust is a named beneficiary.
- Resolving outstanding creditor debts.
- Settling estate, income, or capital-gains tax obligations.
- Preparing and filing all relevant federal tax returns.
When the grantor becomes incapacitated
If the grantor becomes incapacitated, the successor trustee assumes responsibility for the grantor's care — managing financial affairs, supporting minors and dependents as the trust directs, maintaining proper records, coordinating with insurance providers, and retaining independent legal and investment counsel for the trust as needed.
Why appoint Crawford Trust as your successor trustee
By naming Crawford Trust as successor trustee, the trust will enjoy a Nevada-based corporate fiduciary experienced in administering trusts as a successor trustee, working alongside your existing attorneys, CPAs, and financial advisors to carry out your estate goals precisely as your trust document provides.
A licensed corporate trustee places execution and management of your trust in qualified, specialized hands — relieving a family member of a burden they may lack the time, expertise, or emotional distance to carry out well. Trusts with appreciating assets, evolving terms, or minor beneficiaries benefit most from this kind of professional administration. There is no cost to name Crawford Trust as your successor trustee. Fees apply only once Crawford Trust is asked to begin administering the trust.
Get in touchRelated services
Other ways we serve families like yours.
Directed Trustee Services
Continue the relationships with the financial advisors you have appointed. Nevada's directed-trusts statutes let families share investment, distribution, and administration roles.
Trust Decanting
Circumstances change. Nevada's exceptional statutes allow changes to your existing trust regardless of its current situs.
Private Trust Company Services
When assets demand more privacy, Crawford Trust can help family offices identify and provide roles into an independent private trust company structure.
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Preserving legacies and peace of mind — every day.
The journey to your legacy was unique. Let Crawford Trust help develop and administer a Trust that will protect it — for centuries to come. Contact us for a complimentary consultation.