Here is the deal.
There is a trust fund in my name that became mine when I turned 21. I’m now 22 and it is still in my parents control, and they refuse to sign the paperwork even thought it is now legally mine.
So I need to go to court to have it done.
My goal is to do it all by byself without having to hire a lawyer because I don’t want to waste the money on one.
Does anyone know the procedue by which to do this?
Are there any provisions in the contract that say your parents’ can withhold the trust fund for any reason?
My B-I-L has a trust fund left by his mother. Originally, he was supposed to get it when he turned 30. There’s a clause, however, that states the executors (or whatever they’re called) can review his current situation and change the age at which he’ll get the money (up to age 40, which he’ll turn later this year). His mother knew he was reckless with money (and he still is) and was afraid he’d blow all the money in a short period of time (which he likely will).
Sounds like you’re gonna have to get a lawyer.
The people who control a trust are called … trustees.
Go figure.
:smack:
I knew that. 
There is no provision in this one. It’s legally mine my father is just a prick and likes toy with me and refuses to sign the paper to transfer it.
It’s actually a Scholarshare educational account. It should take like 5 minutes but I still hate wasting money on a lawyer.
You can always try suing your dad for the cost of any associated legal fees for his failure to carry out his duties as trustee.
Time to take Dad to school. Sue him.
i’m confused.
are you the beneficiary?
because if you are, and your dad is the owner of the 529 account, he can change the beneficiary at any time.
or did you make all the contributions and he only needs to sign off in order for you to pay a tuition bill or something?
Here’s a booklet (small pdf) from ScholarShare on the 529 plans
It might be prudent to get an attorney.
It depends on the terms of the trust in the fine print, who established the trust, etc. etc.
Presumably your father has control and is holding off because he senses you are being a horsesheinne about it or he is one himself which seems to be your opinion.
Step back and see if you are being overly difficult about the matter and why you feel you should have control of the $$$$$$$!
i just looked at your prior posts.
is this the money from your grandfather in the scholarshare account?
i think you are going to need a lawyer and an accountant.
I just took a quick look at that brochure, and it says pretty clearly that the account belongs to the account owner (the person opening the account) and not the beneficiary. That’s the same thing I was told when I opened 529 accounts with my children as beneficiaries, and the “Golden State Scholarshare College Savings Trust” is definitely a 529 plan. It’s not at all the same as having a trust account opened which is turned over to the beneficiary at a certain age. If my daughter graduates from high school and decides not to go to college I can make her brother the beneficiary of her account, even if she’s over 18, because I own the account, not her. Just like I might own a life insurance policy and name her the as the beneficiary without giving her ownership.
IANA trust lawyer but my wife is. The trust owner and the trust beneficiary are two very different things with very different rights and responsibilities, even if in some cases they are the same real person.
The right answer to this stuff depends very strongly on the specific terms of the trust document and the laws under which it was created.
Absent detailed knowledge of both those things any opinions offered here, including mine, are mere guesswork that might be well be true in many cases but not be true in your case.
Spend the money to talk to a pro, or else plan to screw it up and piss off your parents to boot.
This can be a lot more complicated than an automatic transmission, and I bet you wouldn’t try to fix one of those on your own without training, guided only by a couple of messageboard postings and a pamphlet you downloaded from someplace.
Like doctoring & plumbing, we see a lot of cases where it would have cost $500 to fix the problem if they’d come to us first, but after they’ve tried to “fix” it themselves and made a mess, it costs more like $5000 to undo the financial / legal damage, to say nothing of the enduring hard feelings between family members.
I’m not the BENEFICIARY!!
That is a different type of account. Yes, there is one where the owner retains all control over the account and the beneficiary only gets the money - he doesn’t own it.
I have a different one where I become the legal owner when I turn 21. OWNER, not BENEFICIARY. There is a very big difference.
The most is indeed legally mine and I don’t even see why I should have to go through all this shit to get this done. It’s legally my money and there is no provision that says I shouldn’t get it when I turn 21 so why the hell does paperwork even need to be filled out by him.
I don’t have time for all this legal crap.
perhaps you should have simply told us that it was a custodial account to begin with.
i think we have all just seen why your dad (rightly or wrongly) has not signed the paperwork.
good luck.
As far as I can tell from the ScholarShare brochure in astro’s link, if the ownership of the account has been transferred to you, then getting your parent’s signature is irrelevant.
Or if this is what’s called a “Custodial Account”, where you as the Beneficiary were always the legal owner of the account but somebody else had custody of it while you were a minor, then it looks as though the only necessary procedure is to notify the Program Manager that you are now of age and fill out an application to assume control of the account.
Well, grumbling fruitlessly and complaining on message boards might be less time-intensive but doesn’t seem very effective—after all, you’ve already waited a year for your money with no result. Could you at least get together your account paperwork and call the ScholarShare program representative to ask about it, if you don’t want to deal with a lawyer?
Personally, I usually find that I spend a lot more time sitting around stewing about a problem than it takes to actually solve it once I finally get proactive.
Well, do you have to go through all this shit? If you became the owner of the trust when you turned 21, and this is clear and unambiguous in the trust document, is the bank where the funds sit telling you that you are the owner but you still need some other person to sign something in order for them to give you the money? Are you SURE they are correct about this? Are you sure they understand that you are the owner of the trust – not the beneficiary? Perhaps they are confused.
I am sure you are frustrated, but asking for people’s advice even though you haven’t fully explained the situation, and then yelling at them when they don’t give you the answer you want to hear - which would have been impossible anyway since you didn’t give them the whole story in the first place - isn’t the best way to approach things. Not here and not in life.
Before giving any more suggestions that may be irrelevant, why don’t you confirm to us exactly what kind of account it is and exactly what you have already done in order to get the money, and exactly what you have been told by the authorities as to why you cannot have it even though you’re the owner.
Exactly why people hire lawyers.
MrPlatypus, you should listen to this wise advice. In addition to giving good counsel, missbunny identifies one of the reasons why the board lawyers aren’t flocking to answer you question.
There are other reasons, of course. Comments about “wasting money” on lawyers aren’t likely to endear you to those most able to help you. More importantly, lawyers learn how spot problem-client personalities and avoid them. Missbunny may not have this experience, so she is being very nice and diplomatic.
(For an illustration of this crank-client-dar, commented on by a couple attorneys on this thread, see http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=327406)