Q: My Brother change my parents living trust to a corrective deed of trust. I need to know if this was legal.
My father and mother had a living trust written up in 2004. My dad passed away in June of 2010 my mother remained alive and then passed away in september of 2019. There are six children who are the beneficiaries my oldest brother is the trustee/beneficiary. After my mom passed the trust was never read to any of us when I questioned by oldest brother he said the trust was really of no importance and that he didn't know why our dad had wasted so much time and effort on it. I found information on the trust in the county where my parents resided. The document was no longer a living trust it had been changed to a corrective deed of trust. The new document was made and written up in 2017 in another state and does not include my mom's name or my brother's name. I was present at the meeting 2004 when the living trust was written. There was detailed instructions regarding the house, items in the house and a life insurance policy. My brother has not presented any of the details why he changed it
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A:
You need to hire a trust administration attorney to help you with this. A living trust and a corrective deed are two completely different things. A living trust is an will-substitute that contains the grantor's plan of distribution for his or her estate upon death, among other things. A deed (and this includes corrective deeds) is an instrument of conveyance of real property. The are related in that a deed is used to transfer real property to a living trust.
If your dad had real property titled to a living trust, then that real property needs to be administered in accordance with the terms of the trust. Furthermore, you are entitled to a copy of that trust pursuant to California law. An attorney can help you by sending a demand to the trustee for a copy of the trust. An attorney can also help you sort out how the real property is titled.
A: You would have to explain better what documents were done on the title to the house. You would want to look at the entire chain of title and compare to the trust documents. If there is real property you should have a right to see any trust or will of your parents' that existed.
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