My uncle, my mothers brother died in the state of North Carolina in
2001. He spent most of his life in Virginia where he had a house but
shortly before his death he came to North Carolina and was taken care
of by one of his three sisters. My mother is one of the sisters and
lives in Oklahoma. The other two sisters live in North Carolina. This
brings me to my question concerning trusts.

  My uncle had a will and a trust, I dont know the exact type of trust
but he set it up in Virginia many years before his death and a
financial institution was the trustee, all in Virginia. My uncle died,
the will did not have any of his wishes concerning finances or assets,
all of this was in the trust. One of the sisters and her husband
appear to have gotten their hands on at least 90% of the assets,
approx $1,000,000 min and property etc and will not let my mother or
the third sister see the trust documents nor will they answer any
questions about my uncles wishes or who was listed as beneficiaries.
One of their daughters conveniently got power of attorney shortly
before my uncles death also. The whole situation stinks!!!

  My question-  doesnt my mother, one of the three sisters to my uncle
have a legal right to see what is in this trust? The one sister who
appears to be breaking a few laws, her daughter- power of attorney,
and her husband all know exactly what was in the trust. They may or
may not be beneficiaries, I dont know. It seems to me the three
sisters of my uncle would have equal legal rights and should have
access to this trust, more so than a cousin or brother in law.  Is
there a statute of limitations in matters like this in North Carolina?
 The one sister made the will available because there is very little
in it concerning assets or property

8-11-2005

The problem may be that if your mother is not named as a beneficiary
in the trust, she will not have the right to receive information about
it.

The other sister or her daughter (or both) may have schemed to get a
new trust drafted to exclude anyone but themselves as beneficiaries,
and your uncle may have taken medications (if he was being treated for
illness) or may have not been of sound enough mind to resist signing
the new trust if he really didn't want to--he may have just signed it
just to go along, or he may have completely agreed with its provisions
or they could have threatened him to sign it under pressure.

Since most people who draft a trust put all of the assets into the
trust, I don't think you need to be concerned too much about the will
now.

You now need to consult with a Virginia trust attorney (since the
trust was drafted in Virginia) to find out what your rights may be as
potential beneficiary--some states allow the beneficiary to send the
trustee a certified letter requesting a copy of the trust and an
annual accounting statement, and other states do not.  If Virginia law
allows such, then you need to have your attorney draft this letter for
you so that the trustee will be more likely to pay attention to it and
respond, and not ignore it as what might happen if you alone only
wrote the letter.

Since this person got power of attorney, it is possible that she may
have abused that position if she did not spend the monies she got on
your uncle's care, so your attorney can also advise you whether you
have grounds to go after her legally for elder financial abuse or
abuse of POA if she kept some or most of the money for herself. 
Attorney can also advise you about whether a statute of limitations
applies.

It looks like you are going to have to ask your mother to decide
whether she and the other beneficiaries are going to have legal
grounds to contest the trust, and from the shady way this was handled,
it looks like she will have grounds to do so.

SINCERELY,
4KEITH (I'm NOT a GOOGLE Researcher)