Trustee Termination

[cherryx4]

I will try to make a very long and complicated story short. My grandfather is 91 years old. His wife, not my grandmother, has severe dementia. Together they have a trust, done in 1998 and the wife's daughter was named trustee in the event both become incapacitated. My grandfather has not been declared incompetent as far as I know. However, She has been acting as trustee and has care takers for her mother in my grandfather's home. My grandfather has discovered that she has been taking money from him. There is an elder abuse investigation from a bank account in another state that money was taken from. And the step daughter has since tried to take money from his account here. He wants this stopped and he wants her terminated as trustee. Unfortunately, last year, he and his wife transferred their home into the step daughters name as trustee. When I told him that, he was absolutely shocked! He does not at all remember doing that and he is very upset that he is paying a mortgage on a home that he unknowingly signed away.

That is only a portion of the nightmare, but my primary concern is how we get him away from this woman. Can we separate him/his trust from his wife/ wife's trust? I believe the wife has a separate trust in addition to the one they have together and she seems to have a large family and may have had assets prior to their marriage. We don't want to go anywhere near that. We simply want him to have control of his own life back.

He may be able to end the trust according to its terms if he is still competent. If it cannot be ended by its terms then you may need to go to court and have her actions examined and seek her removal. It is often done. Even the threat may cause her to act more appropriately.