Ви втратили близьку людину — і вас призначено управителем.

The first week: decide, secure, and find the documents

Decide whether to accept. Acceptance is by the instrument's method or by conduct — taking delivery of the property, exercising powers or performing duties — and a person may preserve the property without accepting if the person rejects as soon as practicable (O.C.G.A. § 53-12-202). Secure the house and the records, find the trust instrument and every amendment, the death certificate and the deeds, and list the accounts by how they are titled.

Record the date of death: for a trust that was revocable, it is the day the trust became irrevocable, and Georgia's one notice counts from it (§ 53-12-242). Record the date you accepted too; no notice runs from it, but a court accounting's eligibility does (§ 53-12-230).

The notice: 60 days from the death

Within 60 days after the date on which a revocable trust becomes irrevocable, the trustee notifies the qualified beneficiaries of the existence of the trust and the name and mailing address of the trustee (O.C.G.A. § 53-12-242(a)) — two contents, no form. The qualified beneficiaries are the current distributees and permissible distributees of income or principal, and those who would be if the current interests ended or the trust terminated on the date (§ 53-12-2(10)); a representative may receive the notice for a minor, an incapacitated or an unborn beneficiary (§ 53-12-8).

Send it in a manner likely to result in receipt — personal delivery, registered or certified mail or statutory overnight delivery, an electronic address the person consented to use, or an electronic portal on the statute's conditions (§ 53-12-511) — and keep the record of the method, the date and each recipient. Irrevocable trusts in existence on July 1, 2010 are deemed to have waived the notice unless the instrument says otherwise (§ 53-12-242(b)).

Строки довірчого власника в Джорджії: що передбачають закони

Звірено із законами Джорджії 2026-10-14. Загальна інформація, не юридична консультація; офіційний текст має пріоритет.

Taking control and listing the assets

A successor takes reasonable steps to compel the predecessor to deliver the trust property and to redress a breach the successor knows or should know of — the acts a successor answers for (O.C.G.A. § 53-12-304(a)); a successor to a trustee who was also the settlor has no duty to sue the settlor-trustee as to the portion the settlor could revoke (§ 53-12-304(b)). Within a reasonable time after accepting or receiving the assets, the trustee reviews them and decides what to retain and what to dispose of under the prudent investor rule (§ 53-12-342, § 53-12-340).

A certification of trust (§ 53-12-280) tells a bank, a custodian or a buyer what it needs without the instrument: the trust's existence and date, each settlor, each current trustee and how many must act, the relevant powers, revocability and how property is titled — signed by each trustee.

Creditors, the estate, and the periods

Georgia gives a trustee no creditor procedure. Where an estate is opened, the personal representative publishes a notice to creditors within 60 days of qualification, once a week for four weeks in the county's official newspaper, has six months from the first qualification to ascertain the estate's condition, and a creditor who does not give notice within three months from the last publication loses equal participation with creditors of equal priority to whom distribution is made before notification (O.C.G.A. § 53-7-41). Claims rank by § 53-7-40: year's support, funeral expenses, the expenses of administration, the last illness, taxes and debts due the state or the United States, judgments and liens, then everything else.

After the settlor's death, and subject to the settlor's right to direct the source of payment, the property of a trust that was revocable at the death is subject to the claims of the creditors of the settlor's estate to the extent the probate estate is inadequate (§ 53-12-82(a)(2)(C)); payments that would escape those claims if made by beneficiary designation are not reached unless the instrument provides otherwise. Who is a creditor, whether a claim is timely and whether the estate is inadequate are questions the record informs and a licensed Georgia attorney of your choosing answers.

The surviving spouse and the family

Georgia has no elective share and no homestead devise rule. The surviving spouse and minor children are entitled to year's support — property for 12 months' support and maintenance, among the necessary expenses of administration and preferred before all other debts or demands (O.C.G.A. § 53-3-1) — on a petition filed in the probate court within 24 months of the death (§ 53-3-5), which the court sets apart, considering the family's standard of living and the other support available (§ 53-3-7). A spouse's remarriage or death before the petition bars the right (§ 53-3-2).

The house

A house titled to the trustee passes under the trust's provisions; a house in the decedent's name passes by will or intestacy, with title vesting in the heirs at death subject to an administrator's appointment (O.C.G.A. § 53-2-7), or by survivorship where the deed said so expressly (§ 44-6-190), or under a transfer-on-death deed as 2026 law rewrote it. A deed of real property to a trust of which the settlor was a trustee was recorded (§ 53-12-25(b)); whether the property-tax homestead exemption continues is a county question the trustee asks before the next tax bill.

The accounting, the contest window, and distribution

Once the trust is irrevocable, the trustee accounts at least annually, at termination and on a change of trustees to each beneficiary to whom income or principal is required or authorized to be distributed during the period and to any person who may revoke — receipts and disbursements of principal and income, and the assets and liabilities at the period's end (O.C.G.A. § 53-12-243(b)); a beneficiary's written waiver, the instrument or the settlor's delivered writing may displace it (§ 53-12-243(c), (d)).

A contest of a trust that was revocable at the death is commenced within two years of the death (§ 53-12-45(a)). The trustee may proceed to distribute under the trust provisions, without liability for doing so, unless the trustee knows of a pending contest or a potential contestant's written notice is followed by a proceeding within 60 days (§ 53-12-45(b)); a beneficiary of a trust determined invalid returns the distribution (§ 53-12-45(c)). A written report that adequately discloses a claim starts a two-year limitation period for that beneficiary (§ 53-12-307).

When a licensed Georgia attorney is the right next call

TrusteeClear organizes the record, shows the statute's clocks from the dates you record and prepares the existence notice and the certification of trust from your own entries; it does not decide who is a qualified beneficiary, whether the estate is inadequate, whether a contest has merit or whether a distribution is protected. A licensed Georgia attorney of your choosing can advise on those questions and on the estate beside the trust.