Who Is a Successor Trustee?
A successor trustee is an individual who manages and controls a trust after its trustee dies or is incapacitated. For example, the person who creates a trust, called a grantor, may be his own trustee, managing and controlling the trust’s assets. He may appoint another person to be a successor trustee, managing the assets when he is no longer able to do so. While the successor trustee cannot use the trust’s assets to his own benefit, unless he is also a beneficiary of the trust, he can sell, transfer, and distribute assets according to the instructions the grantor created for the trust.
