If you already have a trust, here is a direct question: do you know who your successor trustee is, and have they been trained?
Most people cannot answer both halves. Many can name someone. Very few can say that the person named has been prepared for the office.
Why the default choice is a problem
The default successor is usually a family member or a close friend — chosen for loyalty, which is genuinely valuable, and untrained in everything else. They inherit fiduciary duty they did not study for, administration they have never done, and decisions that carry real consequences.
Loyalty without preparation is not protection. It is a well-meaning person holding an office they do not understand, at a moment when the family is least equipped to correct course.
Succession is continuity, not paperwork
Trust administration is continuous. Accounts need oversight, decisions need making, records need keeping. A gap in trusteeship is a gap in all of it — including at the bank, where continuity of account oversight is a practical requirement rather than an abstraction.
Planning succession means arranging that no office sits empty and no function pauses when a person changes.
What a prepared successor looks like
- Identified in advance and named appropriately in the trust's arrangements
- Independent — not related by blood or marriage, and holding no beneficial interest
- Trained in trust administration and, ideally, practiced in equity
- Familiar with this particular trust before taking office
- Willing, with the capacity to make the duties a priority
Train before you need to
Successor trustees can be recruited and vetted the same way an initial trustee is, and they can be educated through The Trustee Network alongside people learning to serve in the role professionally. Both routes take time, which is the argument for starting now rather than at the point of necessity.
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