Their mom died last August. There are three of them, all in their mid-forties, and their oldest sister was named successor trustee of their mom’s revocable living trust. She’d always had her act together, and when she said to let her handle the paperwork and she’d be in touch when it was done, it felt reasonable to trust her with it. She was the one who had always kept things organized.
For months there was silence. Then a one-page accounting arrived as a texted photo. The house had sold for $415,000. After expenses, repairs, legal fees, and the trustee fee, her sister said $228,000 remained to be split three ways. Something felt off but she couldn’t name it, so she let it sit for two weeks before she opened the banker’s box her sister had dropped off and spent a Saturday night at her kitchen table with a yellow legal pad working through every number she could find.
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The closing statement showed the house netted about $390,000 after normal closing costs. The one-page accounting listed repairs as a single line item that worked out to roughly $95,000 when she backed into it from the sale price and other figures. But the contractor invoices in the box added up to about $22,000. The attorney invoices totaled around $9,000. The trustee fee was $31,000. Starting from the $390,000 net and subtracting the actual documented expenses left her near $328,000 before any distributions. The $228,000 her sister claims remains leaves about $100,000 unaccounted for.
She then went through the bank statements in the box, which covered the full period from when the trust account was opened through May. When she added the deposits and subtracted every check she could trace, the gap came out to roughly the same $100,000. She’s spent three nights staring at the legal pad telling herself she must be misunderstanding something, because the alternative is that her sister, who cried with her at the funeral, kept money that belonged to all three of them.
A $31,000 trustee fee worth examining
Before anything else, the trustee fee is worth looking at on its own. In Texas, trustee compensation is supposed to be reasonable given the size and complexity of the estate and the work involved. A $31,000 fee on an estate that consisted primarily of selling one house and distributing the proceeds is on the high end of what most courts would consider reasonable, and it’s a number her sister set for herself without any outside review. That doesn’t make it automatically improper, but it’s a figure that belongs in any formal accounting review.
The more pressing issue is the repair discrepancy. A $95,000 line item for repairs backed out from the numbers, compared to $22,000 in actual contractor invoices sitting in the same box, is a $73,000 gap that has no obvious innocent explanation. Repairs are generally one of the easier expense categories to document because contractors issue invoices and payments leave paper trails. If $73,000 in repairs happened that aren’t reflected in any invoice she found, there should be documentation for them somewhere.
Her rights as a beneficiary in Texas
Texas trust law gives beneficiaries the right to a formal accounting from the trustee, and that right doesn’t depend on her sister’s willingness to provide one. A trustee has a fiduciary duty to the beneficiaries, which includes keeping accurate records, accounting for all trust assets and expenses, and acting in the interests of everyone the trust is meant to benefit rather than in her own interest. Providing a one-page summary via text message photo does not satisfy the accounting obligations a Texas trustee carries.
She can formally demand a full accounting in writing, and her sister as trustee is legally obligated to respond. A proper accounting includes all assets the trust received, every expense with documentation, all distributions made, and a full reconciliation of what remains. If her sister refuses or fails to provide one, that refusal itself becomes relevant in any legal proceeding that follows.
Talking to an attorney before doing anything else
She’s worried that calling a lawyer and finding out the gap has an innocent explanation will damage something she can’t repair. That concern is understandable but has it backwards. A beneficiary requesting a formal accounting from a trustee is a completely normal and legally protected action. It doesn’t require accusing anyone of anything. It’s simply exercising a right she already has.
A probate or trust attorney in Texas can send a formal demand letter for an accounting, review whatever her sister produces in response, and tell her whether the numbers make sense once she has the full picture. If there’s an innocent explanation for the $100,000 gap, an attorney will find it faster than she can working alone at her kitchen table. If there isn’t, she needs an attorney involved before she has any conversation with her sister or her brother.
Keeping the brother out of it for now
She hasn’t told her brother yet, and that’s the right call at this stage. Bringing him in before she has a clearer picture adds another person to manage and increases the chance that something gets said to her sister before she understands what she’s actually dealing with. Once she’s spoken to an attorney and has a formal demand for accounting in motion, her brother can be brought in with actual information rather than suspicion and a legal pad full of math.
She’s not losing her mind. She ran the numbers three times and got the same answer. The question isn’t whether the gap exists. It’s what caused it, and she deserves a complete answer to that question regardless of what it turns out to mean.
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