Opinion ID: 2310646
Heading Depth: 3
Heading Rank: 1

Heading: Riggs' Trustee Compensation

Text: The legatees' expert, August Zinsser, III, stated that institutional trustees are paid commissions based on their standard schedules of fees, but that institutional trustees in the District of Columbia typically do not charge a percentage termination fee where they served as trustee for a trust which pours over into an estate for which they also serve as personal representative, even when a published fee schedule literally permits a termination fee. Even if Zinsser accurately described standard practice in the District of Columbia, as appellees' expert, George Levendis, and the probate court correctly noted, the payment of termination commissions was contractual, in the sense that the Trust instrument provided that institutional commissions would be based upon the fee schedule of Riggs ... which in turn does provide for termination fees. . . . Cf. RESTATEMENT (SECOND) OF TRUSTS § 242 cmt. f (If by the terms of the trust it is provided that the trustee shall receive a certain amount as compensation for his services as trustee, he is ordinarily entitled to that amount. . . .). The legatees argue that because the Final Account of the trust was not prepared until at the earliest 1993, the probate court should have based its award on Riggs' standard fee schedule in effect at that time, which called for Riggs to receive a single one percent (1%) commission where Riggs served both as trustee of a trust and also was named personal representative of the estate which receives the trust corpus. The trust by its own terms terminated on the death of Ms. King in 1991, however, and the trust instrument unequivocally states that [t]his trust shall terminate upon the death of the Grantor. Although the customary practice may be to waive such fees, Riggs was within its contractual rights, pursuant to the trust instrument and the fee schedule in place at the termination of the trust, to receive the termination fees. See id. Accordingly, the trial court did not abuse its discretion by awarding the requested trustee compensation to Riggs based on its 1991 fee schedule.