The trustee will not tell me anything. What am I entitled to?

More than most beneficiaries realize, and silence past a certain point stops being a family matter and becomes a legal one.

You are entitled to more than most beneficiaries realize, and silence from a trustee — while extremely common — is not lawful past a point.

What you can ask for

• A copy of the trust. As a beneficiary of an irrevocable trust you are entitled to the terms that govern your interest, on request. Not a summary. The document.
• The statutory notification. The trustee owes you a formal notice after the trust becomes irrevocable. If you never received one, that is itself worth knowing, because the period for contesting the trust may never have started.
• An accounting. In most cases you can demand one, and where the trustee will not produce it a court can order it.
• Reasonable information about the administration. What is being sold, what is being paid, and roughly when you should expect a distribution.

Make the request in writing

This matters more than it sounds. A written request dated and sent creates a record of what was asked and when. Trustees who ignore a phone call frequently answer a letter, and if the matter ever reaches a judge the difference between "he never told us anything" and a file of unanswered letters is the whole case.

What usually turns out to be true

Most of these resolve on the accounting. The demand is made, the records are produced, and what looked from the outside like concealment turns out to be disorganization — a sibling who took on a job they did not understand, fell behind, and then stopped answering the phone because they were embarrassed.

Sometimes it turns out to be the other thing. You cannot tell which from the outside, which is exactly why the information matters.

One thing to be clear about

The trustee's attorney does not act for you. They act for the trustee, even when they are pleasant, even when they answer your questions, and even when the trustee is your brother. If you need advice about your own position, it has to come from someone who is not also advising the person you may end up in a dispute with.