Ask Liza: Creditor’s Claims and Trust Administration

By Liza Weiman Hanks

Dear Liza: I am the successor trustee of my parents trust.  The have both passed and I was told before I disburse the assets I need to advertise a Notice to Creditors. How long and how many times do I need to advertise?  

Since I don’t know which state you live in, I can only provide you with a very general answer.  In most states, although not California, where I live and practice, if you are administering a trust, there’s no special creditor’s claim process that requires publication. Instead, creditors have a limited period of time in which to make a claim, and after that, it’s just too late. In California, again, that’s one year. In your state, it could be more, you’ll have to find out what the statute of limitations is after a death, you can try typing in “statute of limitations for claims against estate in _____” to your favorite web browser.

If there is a creditor’s claim process, that’s a way to accelerate the discovery and payment of creditors. Usually, that does involve publication that a person has died, and then there’s a specific number of days in which any creditors can make a claim against the trust’s assets (and this is less than the time allowed by that state’s statute of limitations). Once that claim is made, the Trustee has a certain number of days to either pay, or deny that claim. If a creditor fails to make a claim within the required time period, they are then barred, forever after, from making a claim.  This is similar to how creditor’s claims are handled in probate — a notice is given, a time limit runs, there’s a process for paying or contesting a claim, and then a creditor is barred. This is all an attempt to have some finality after a death, so beneficiaries can inherit without the fear of lurking liabilities out there.

As a general matter, you do need to pay the creditors that you know about, so all of the bills that have come due since your parents have died should be paid before you distribute anything from the trust to other beneficiaries. Also, please make sure to pay the taxes first, before any other creditors.  You should also know that secured debts, like a mortgage, do pass with the property that they are secured by. So, for example, if Sam inherits the house, and there’s a mortgage on that house, Sam is going to have to either pay that mortgage off, or get the lender to let him assume that mortgage himself (And that’s up to the lender…sometimes they will do it, sometimes they won’t. That depends on Sam and also on the terms of the mortgage.)

Finally, although you should, of course, pay outstanding credit card bills, you should know that the trust’s beneficiaries are NOT personally liable for such unsecured debts if the estate/trust has insufficient assets to pay those bills. I share this with you because bill collectors often neglect to make it clear that unsecured debts, like credit card debts, do not pass to the beneficiaries.

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