Philadelphia Surcharge Actions

A Philadelphia surcharge actions lawyer can assist you if you believe that the trustee, executor or agent under power of attorney has carried out illegal activity and breached his or her fiduciary duty. Each beneficiary in the state of Pennsylvania has a right to question these individuals who have fiduciary duty about their behavior. If such an investigation reveals that the agent in question breached their duty, then the court could order the fiduciary to repair this damage.

When a fiduciary has breached duties and the person bringing forth the legal claim against that person must have evidence in order to show the court. A fiduciary will not be removed from a case unless it can be shown that the evidence indicates unethical and illegal behavior.

This is known as a surcharge and is the result of a beneficiary hiring a Philadelphia surcharge action attorney. A surcharge action lawyer in Philadelphia will make the court aware of the mismanagement on the part of the fiduciary or any illegal or wrongful act. There are many different ways to initiate a surcharge action in Philadelphia, including a petition for removal following a petition for a formal accounting or a removal of an executor or removal of the trustee. The individual facts of your case will determine which of these is most effective. The responsibility falls to the person who is making these allegations to convince a judge to surcharge a fiduciary.

Your case needs to be built upon clear evidence and support from a lawyer. An attorney will help you feel more confident about how you need to initiate the legal claim to have a better chance of success. Whether it’s resolved in litigation or outside of court, you must have an attorney.

The judge will only surcharge a trustee, agent or executor if the right evidence is presented, including expert witness testimony from accountants, interviews with witnesses, interrogatories, and evidence that has been submitted thoroughly, showing that the other party has engaged in some type of illegal or unethical behavior. Identifying an attorney who has extensive surcharge experience is important and can even save you money. Fiduciaries are eligible to use trusts or estate funds to defend themselves. This will only be paid back into the trust if you can effectively show using your evidence that the fiduciary did breach his or her duty. In the end, a surcharge attorney can be an important component of assessing your situation and avoiding pitfalls and problems.

Ultimately this experience can save you money. There are many different types of wrongful acts that can lead to a surcharge action, including, taking property from an estate or from a trust without the approval of the interested beneficiaries, fraud or embezzlement, fraudulently transferred assets, negligent oversight, intentional oversight, fraudulently transferred assets to a member of the fiduciary's family or the fiduciary directly, failing to carry out the wishes or instructions of the deceased as outlined in the will or the trust, failing to follow the terms of a trust, and failing to conclude the estate administration process in a reasonable amount of time. You have to initiate your action for surcharge in the right court in Pennsylvania using the appropriate procedure.

Your surcharge action attorney in Philadelphia will gather evidence, make discovery, and present your case to the court. The selection of this attorney is extremely important for the outcome of your case since your lawyer will want to represent your case as effectively as possible to give you the best chance at recovery when you believe that someone has acted outside of their bounds.