Kontablite trust nan Texas

Who owes an accounting, and to whom

The Texas Trust Code builds the accounting around a demand rather than a calendar. A beneficiary may make a written demand for a statement of accounts, and the trustee delivers one to each beneficiary the section names (§113.151). The duty cannot be written out of an irrevocable trust for its current and presumptive remainder beneficiaries: among the mandatory rules the instrument's terms cannot override is the duty to answer such a demand (§111.0035(b)(4)).

Behind the demand stands the duty to keep the beneficiaries reasonably informed about the administration — the common law's duty, which the statute protects for a beneficiary of an irrevocable trust who is 25 or older (§111.0035(c)). Many trustees meet it with periodic written reports before any demand arrives; the demand is the floor the statute sets, not the ceiling.

While the settlor lives and may revoke or amend the trust (§112.051), the settlor's instructions govern what is reported and to whom; the beneficiaries' own rights to information and to a statement on demand become theirs when the trust is irrevocable — usually at the settlor's death — and from that day the mandatory rules protect them for the current and presumptive remainder beneficiaries (§111.0035(b)(4)). A successor who takes office at that moment inherits no statutory backlog of annual reports, because Texas requires none; what the successor owes is the statement a beneficiary may demand, covering the period since the last accounting or since the trust was created (§113.151).

When an accounting is due

On or before the 90th day after the trustee receives the written demand, or a longer period a court orders; if the statement is not delivered by then, a beneficiary may ask the court to compel it (§113.151). A trustee is not required to account more often than once every 12 months unless a court orders otherwise, and the statement covers all transactions since the last accounting or, for the first, since the trust was created.

Texas has no annual accounting duty, no accounting on a change of trustee and no accounting-on-termination clock of its own; the duty to wind up within a reasonable time after a terminating event (§112.052) and the beneficiaries' right to demand a statement are what close the file.

What the accounting must show (§113.152)

The contents are the statute's, and a statement that leaves one out is incomplete.

• All trust property that has come to the trustee's knowledge or into the trustee's possession, and that has not been previously listed or inventoried.
• A complete account of receipts, disbursements and other transactions regarding the trust property for the period covered, including their source and nature, with receipts of principal and income shown separately.
• A listing of all property being administered, with an adequate description of each asset.
• The cash balance on hand and the name and location of the depository where it is kept.
• All known liabilities owed by the trust.

What a reasonably understandable statement looks like

A statement of accounts is a report to people who were not in the room. It opens with the property on hand at the start of the period, carries each receipt and each disbursement with its date, payee and purpose, separates income from principal where the trust has income and remainder beneficiaries (chapter 116; §116.004), shows the gains and losses on sales, lists each asset on hand at the close with its value and each known liability, and reconciles: the opening balance plus receipts and gains, less disbursements and losses, equals the closing balance. Mineral receipts have their own allocation rules (§116.174).

Read as a beneficiary would read it: a brokerage account that opened the period at one value and closed at another, with the dividends received, the sales made and the fees paid in between, each dated; a house carried at its date-of-death value with the insurance, taxes and repairs paid from the trust's account listed against it; the trustee's own compensation, if any, as a disbursement with the instrument's provision or §114.061 beside it; the cash balance and the bank that holds it. Nothing in §113.152 asks for a narrative, but a short cover note — what period, what changed, what remains — is what makes a statement reasonably understandable rather than merely complete.

Principal and income: the two columns

The statute's instruction to show receipts of principal and income separately (§113.152) is not bookkeeping for its own sake. A trust that pays income to one person and holds principal for another has two sets of beneficiaries with different interests, and the trustee's duty of impartiality (§117.008) is kept in the ledger: what counts as income and what counts as principal follows Texas's Uniform Principal and Income Act (Property Code chapter 116), the fiduciary's duties in allocating are §116.004, and receipts from oil, gas and other natural resources — a Texas specialty — are allocated under §116.174. A statement that runs the two columns together hides exactly the question an income beneficiary and a remainder beneficiary would each want answered.

The court's part

The statute's remedy for an unanswered demand is the court's: if the statement is not delivered on or before the 90th day, a beneficiary may ask the court to compel it (§113.151). A district court has original and exclusive jurisdiction over proceedings concerning trusts, with the exception the section states (§115.001), venue lies where §115.002 provides, and a statutory probate court shares that jurisdiction where one sits. In such a proceeding the court may award costs and reasonable and necessary attorney's fees as it finds equitable and just (§114.064), and among the remedies for a breach of trust is an accounting itself (§114.008). A trustee who keeps the ledger the statement needs rarely meets any of this; a trustee who does not meets all of it at once.

Dat limit administratè Texas: sa lwa yo prevwa

Verifye ak Texas Statutes yo nan dat 2026-10-04. Enfòmasyon jeneral, pa konsèy legal; tèks ofisyèl la ki kòmande.

The records that make it possible

The statement is only as good as the ledger behind it. The trust's own account, every statement and receipt kept, each disbursement recorded as it happens with its reason, the assets' values at the date the trusteeship began and at each closing — the general duty of good-faith administration (§113.051) is met in the ledger before it is met in the report.

Interim statements and informal reports

Nothing stops a trustee from reporting more often than the statute requires, and the duty to keep the beneficiaries reasonably informed (§111.0035(c)) is usually met that way. An informal report is not the statutory statement, and does not restart the 12-month measure; it is the ordinary way of keeping a later demand short.

Releases, written agreements, and the four-year clock

Texas has no limitation notice a trustee can send with an accounting to shorten the time for a beneficiary's claim. A suit alleging breach of fiduciary duty has a four-year limitations period (Civ. Prac. & Rem. Code §16.004(a)(5)). What a trustee can obtain is a release or a written agreement: a beneficiary's release of liability binds only with the full information the statute requires (§114.005), and a written trustee–beneficiary agreement — a release, a consent, an indemnity — binds on the conditions §114.032 states.

The final accounting, receipts and releases

At the end of a trust the trustee may keep exercising its powers for the reasonable period needed to wind up and distribute (§112.052). The final statement of accounts, delivered with the distributions, is the record the beneficiaries' releases rest on (§114.005), and the reserve held until the last liabilities are known is what keeps the trustee from answering personally for a shortfall (§114.001).

The mistakes accountings expose

A statement of accounts shows what happened, and what happened is sometimes a breach.

• Trust money in the trustee's own account, or personal bills paid from the trust's (§113.051).
• A loan of trust funds to the trustee, an affiliate or a relative (§113.052).
• Receipts of principal and income run together where the trust has income and remainder beneficiaries (§113.152; chapter 116).
• Distributions made before the debts, the taxes and the reserve were known (§112.052; §114.001).
• A demand left unanswered past the 90th day, which lets the beneficiary ask the court to compel the statement (§113.151).

When a licensed Texas attorney is the right next call

TrusteeClear organizes the record and keeps the ledger a statement draws on; it does not give legal advice and it does not decide any of these questions for you. Many trustees bring the record to a licensed Texas attorney of their choosing when a demand arrives they cannot answer in full, when a beneficiary disputes a statement, when a release is being negotiated (§§114.005, 114.032), or when the court's help is needed to settle the account (§115.001).