Updated August 7, 2026. Quick answer: if you have just become the successor trustee of a living trust, the job is not probate and there is no judge waiting to tell you what to do. 🔴 But in several states a clock started the day the settlor died — and sending the notice that starts it is the trustee’s own protection, not merely a duty.
What the role actually is
A successor trustee takes over administering a trust when the person who created it dies or can no longer act. Unlike an executor, you are not appointed by a court and you do not need letters — your authority comes from the trust document itself. That is the advantage of the structure, and it is also why nobody hands you a checklist.
⚠️ The absence of supervision is not the absence of duty. You are a fiduciary from the moment you accept, and the beneficiaries can hold you to it afterwards even though no court was watching at the time.
🔴 The notice, and why sending it protects you
California is the clearest worked example. Its Probate Code requires the trustee to serve a notification on the trust beneficiaries and on the settlor’s heirs:
The notification by trustee shall be served not later than 60 days following the occurrence of the event requiring service… or 60 days after the trustee became aware of the existence of a person entitled to receive notification…
If the trustee’s office was vacant when the settlor died, the 60 days runs from when the new trustee commences to serve. Service goes to the last known address, and a trustee need not notify someone who cannot be located “after reasonable diligence” or who is unknown — but that is a diligence standard, not an excuse.
Now the part that changes how a trustee should think about it. The companion section closes the door on trust contests:
A person upon whom the notification… is served… shall not bring an action to contest the trust more than 120 days from the date the notification… is served upon the person, or 60 days from the date on which a copy of the terms of the trust is delivered… during that 120-day period, whichever is later.
🔴 And it applies “whether the notice is served on the person within or after the time period” the statute sets. Serving late does not void the clock — but never serving it means the clock never starts.
A trustee who delays the notice to avoid stirring anyone up is leaving the trust contestable indefinitely. The notice is the thing that ends the argument.
⚠️ These are California’s rules. Other states have their own notification duties, deadlines and contest windows, and some have none of this — this page does not claim a national rule, and the deadline that governs you is your own state’s.
The order that keeps you out of trouble
1. Read the trust before you do anything else, including the parts about your own powers and compensation. Everything else follows from the document.
2. Find out whether a notification is required in your state, and get it out. Where it applies, it is time-limited and it is what starts the contest clock running down.
3. Secure and inventory before values move. Property, accounts, and the house — and if the house is empty, its insurance is the first thing that quietly fails.
4. Keep the assets separate and the records complete. Trust money never mixes with yours, in any amount, however temporarily. Commingling is the single accusation hardest to answer later.
5. Do not distribute early. Debts, taxes and the contest window come first — a distribution you cannot claw back is your problem, not the beneficiary’s.
What you can be paid
A trustee is generally entitled to reasonable compensation, and the trust may set the terms. Taking the fee is taxable income to you; waiving it is not — a family trustee who is also a beneficiary is often better off inheriting the same money than earning it, and that arithmetic is worked through on the executor side, where it is identical in substance: should you waive the fee if you are also an heir. Where a professional is serving instead, what banks and trust companies charge is the market comparison.
⚠️ Scope
This describes the shape of the job. It is not legal advice, and Clear Money Guide does not match people with attorneys. A contested trust, an ambiguous document, or a trustee facing a beneficiary dispute needs a trusts-and-estates lawyer in the relevant state — we can tell you what the rule is; we are not the route to getting it done.
Sources
Quoted from the California Probate Code §§ 16061.7 (notification by trustee) and 16061.8 (the 120-day contest limitation), retrieved 7 August 2026. ⚠️ Honest note on sourcing: the text was read from a commercial code mirror stating “current as of January 1, 2026”. California is used as a worked example of the mechanism, not as a statement of any other state’s law.
Related: letters testamentary (the probate-side equivalent you do not need) · the executor fee calculator.