Why I Almost Never Recommend Naming Three Co-Trustees

When clients ask whether all three children, or all their beneficiaries, or just three trusted people, should serve together as co-successor trustees, I generally recommend against it. It may feel like the "fair" or inclusive choice. In practice, it often creates more problems than it solves. Here are the primary reasons, along with several secondary considerations.

1. Trust administration is largely an administrative function, not a deliberative one

Serving as trustee is, for the most part, a series of administrative tasks: paying bills, filing tax returns, managing accounts, making distributions, keeping records. These aren't decisions that benefit from group input the way a business strategy decision might. Think of how most married couples handle their finances. One spouse balances the checkbook and manages the day-to-day accounts, while the other is largely uninvolved. That division of labor works well precisely because it eliminates redundancy and delay. Trust administration is similar. It's typically not a job where "two heads are better than one." It's best done efficiently by one accountable person who can act without coordinating every check, filing, and distribution with two other people.

2. Multiple trustees create political dynamics that damage family relationships

In my experience, this is the more serious problem. When three siblings or family members are named as co-trustees, two of them almost always align, by personality, geography, or just a pattern of who talks to whom, while the third gradually feels left out. This is rarely intentional, at least at first. Think of any three people you know, and you'll likely find that two of them talk more easily to each other than either does to the third.

Over time, the excluded co-trustee begins to feel that decisions are being made without them. They're presented with a fait accompli instead of being genuinely consulted. That sense of exclusion breeds resentment. Keep in mind, too, that everyone is still grieving, and emotions and sensitivities may be heightened.  Resentment among co-trustees often escalates into full-blown disputes, sometimes over matters they would not ordinarily disagree on. Some of those disputes become serious enough to result in litigation or a will or trust contest. A single trustee avoids this dynamic entirely. So, usually, do two trustees with a genuinely good working relationship.

Additional reasons to avoid three co-trustees

• Delay. Unanimity or majority-vote requirements slow everything down. Banks, title companies, and other institutions often require all co-trustees to sign documents, even if the trust permits less or allows one trustee to bind all of them, which means routine transactions can stall while everyone waits on one person's signature or availability.

• Shared blame, regardless of fault. Each co-trustee has an independent legal duty to watch the others. Under most states' trust codes, a co-trustee isn't automatically on the hook for a colleague's misconduct simply by holding the title. But a co-trustee who fails to catch a serious breach, or fails to act once one comes to light,  can be held personally liable for it. In practice, that means each co-trustee faces real risk for decisions they didn't make and may not have fully understood. Not because the law assumes shared guilt, but because the law expects each of them to have been watching.

• Cost. More trustees usually means more communication, more questions, more meetings, and more professional consultations to get everyone comfortable with a single decision. All of that adds administrative expense and, in some cases, more trustee compensation to pay for it.

• Diffusion of responsibility. When three people are equally responsible, each one tends to assume someone else is handling a given task. Important deadlines and duties can fall through the cracks as a result.

• Majority rule has a cost. With three trustees, disagreements can resolve into a 2-1 vote rather than genuine consensus. That outcome doesn't solve the political problem described above; it just formalizes it.  The trustee on the losing end knows exactly who voted against them.

What I typically recommend instead

I typically recommend naming one trustee, with a full line of successors-- not just one backup, but two, three, or four, named in order, in case the first choice cannot or will not serve. Occasionally, two trustees make sense if they have a demonstrated history of working well together. Some family configurations invite two trustees by design: a representative from among the natural children serving together with a representative of the stepchildren, for example, giving each side of a blended family a seat at the table.

Naming a single trustee doesn't mean leaving that person unsupervised, and it shouldn't. The answer to "who watches the trustee" isn't a second or third co-trustee.  It's oversight that doesn't require day-to-day coordination.  In simple plans, beneficiaries take on this responsibility by reviewing decisions and reports and asking questions.   A trust protector with the power to remove and replace a trustee, a beneficiary's right under most state trust codes to demand a periodic accounting or report, or a corporate trustee paired with a family member in an advisory rather than co-equal role can all supervise a sole trustee without recreating the committee problem this article is about. 

I've written elsewhere about trust protectors and corporate trustees in the context of estate administration. The short version: supervision and shared administration are two different tools, and confusing them is part of why three-trustee arrangements go wrong.

If it's your trust, you are the boss. These are recommendations based on specific considerations, not hard-and-fast rules. You decide which considerations matter most in your estate plan.

These considerations preserve administrative efficiency while reducing the risk that the trust becomes a battleground for old family dynamics.

Your Voice Can Now Be Faked: Can Your Estate Plan Survive Technology?

For as long as elder law has existed as a practice area, verification of identity over the phone has rested on one simple, unspoken assumption: you know your own grandchild’s voice when you hear it. That assumption no longer holds. Artificial intelligence can now clone a familiar voice from as little as three seconds of audio,  a birthday video, a voicemail greeting, a clip pulled from social media, or a robocall, and exploit it to power a version of the decades-old “grandparent scam” convincing enough to defeat even a cautious listener. The panic in the voice is real. The words are the right words. The voice itself is the only thing that isn’t.

This isn’t a hypothetical for the planning bar. It’s a documented, spreading pattern. Consumer-protection groups have spent recent weeks pushing families to adopt a “family code word” a phrase agreed on in advance, unrelated to anything posted online, to be used specifically when a call demands money or attention under pressure. It’s sound advice, and every elder law practitioner, financial planner, and insurance agent should be handing it out. But it’s advice aimed at the kitchen table. It doesn’t touch the legal architecture that actually controls whether money moves- the power of attorney, the trusted-contact designation, the account-hold authority sitting in a drawer, unconsidered- until the moment it’s tested.

That traditional planning architecture was built for a world where verification meant recognition. AI has broken that link, and it has broken it in two directions at once. A cloned voice can pressure the principal into authorizing a transfer. It can just as easily impersonate the agent, calling an institution directly and instructing it to move funds under an existing power of attorney the institution has no independent way to verify by voice alone. Most planning advice addresses only the first scenario. The second is at least as dangerous, because it bypasses the principal entirely and goes straight to the money.

States are beginning to notice the fallout, if not yet this particular version of it. Minnesota’s ban on cryptocurrency ATMs, which took effect August 1, was a direct response to roughly a million dollars in senior losses tied to these machines since 2023. Scammers often used the familiar emergency script to push victims into feeding cash into kiosks that converted it to untraceable crypto within minutes. The ban treats one symptom. It does nothing about the underlying vulnerability: once a caller sounds sufficiently convincing, most of our legal and financial safeguards still treat voice as authentication, whether that voice claims to be the principal in distress or the agent giving instructions.

Elder law planning has better tools available. They simply haven’t fully caught up to what AI has done to the threat model. Four drafting and advising changes are worth building into practice now, and it’s worth being explicit about which threat each one addresses.

Two-Party Authentication

First, treat unusual disbursements as a two-person decision, not a one-person judgment call,  and write the requirement to bind the institution, not just the agent.

A standard power of attorney gives the named agent broad, immediate authority to act: the right design when the goal is avoiding paralysis during a medical crisis, and the wrong design when the emergency itself might be manufactured. For clients with meaningful assets, consider a threshold trigger: transfers above a defined dollar amount, or transfers requested under circumstances involving secrecy or urgency, require confirmation from a named second party (a co-agent, a designated confirmer, or a simple written acknowledgment) before the transfer is executed. 

Communicate the restriction directly to the relevant financial institutions in advance, in writing, as a condition on the account rather than a private understanding between agent and principal. Drafted this way, the requirement protects against both threats: it slows down an agent who has been manipulated by a convincing call, and it stops an institution from honoring instructions from someone merely claiming to be the agent, since the institution itself is now contractually required to seek independent confirmation before acting.

Formalize Trusted Contact Designation

Second, formalize the trusted-contact designation at every financial institution a client uses.

FINRA Rule 2165 already gives broker-dealers the ability to place a temporary hold on a disbursement when financial exploitation is reasonably suspected, and to contact a client-designated trusted person before funds move. Many banks now offer comparable voluntary programs. The problem is that almost no one completes these forms until after something has gone wrong. Make this standard intake for every aging-in-place or elder law client: identify a trusted contact, confirm the designation is on file at each bank and brokerage, and revisit it the same way you revisit a beneficiary designation. Because the trusted-contact hold is triggered by the institution’s own suspicion rather than by who is on the phone, it functions as a backstop against agent impersonation as well as against pressure on the principal:  the institution doesn’t need to know which version of the scam it’s looking at to use it.

Family Code Word

Third, put the “family code word” concept into the Trusted Contact Designation document itself, and extend it to cover instructions to institutions, not just calls to family.

A power of attorney or a supplemental letter of instruction can specify that no unusual or time-pressured transfer will be executed, whether requested by a purportedly distressed family member or communicated by phone to a bank or brokerage claiming to act under the power of attorney, without independent verification through a pre-agreed method: a callback to a known number, a code word, or confirmation through a second channel. Writing this into the governing document, and into the institution’s file on the account, does two things a verbal family agreement cannot: it gives everyone involved explicit cover to slow down and verify even under pressure, and it creates a standard a court or institution can point to later if a transaction is challenged as the product of fraud or undue influence, regardless of whether the fraud targeted the principal or impersonated the agent.

Settle a Trust

Fourth, consider a revocable living trust as a structural layer beyond the power of attorney, for reasons that go well past probate avoidance.

A funded trust changes who is actually handling disbursements and how they are made. A corporate or professional trustee typically already runs verification protocols scaled to resist exactly this kind of fraud as a matter of routine practice.  Institutional trustees don’t disburse significant sums based on a single phone call from anyone, family member or agent, regardless of how convincing the voice. Even with an individual serving as trustee, a trust naming co-trustee, special trustees or a trust protector can require joint authorization for distributions above a set threshold, or from a specific account, building the same friction described above directly into the structure rather than relying on it being honored voluntarily.

Trusts also offer a privacy advantage that is easy to overlook and increasingly relevant to fraud prevention specifically. A will and recorded General Durable Power of Attorney both become a public record once it’s filed for probate or recorded, disclosing assets, beneficiaries, and family structure to anyone who looks. A revocable trust generally does not; its existence, its terms, its trustee and successor trustee names, and the value of what it holds are not filed anywhere as a matter of course. That matters because voice-cloning scams increasingly begin with reconnaissance, scraping social media, obituaries, and public records to build a convincing family narrative and identify who has assets worth targeting. A trust that never surfaces in a public filing gives that reconnaissance far less to work with.

One practical step follows directly from this: when funding a trust with real property, the deed conveying the property to the trustee is ordinarily recorded and, in most counties today, published in a searchable online index,  which can reveal the trust’s name, the trustee, and by implication at least some details of a family’s private planning to anyone who searches the owner’s name. Where the local recorder’s office permits it, request that the deed be recorded without inclusion in the public-facing online index. Some counties offer this only case-by-case (for example for law enforcement or public officials) or only to certain categories of filer, so it’s worth confirming what a given recorder allows before assuming the option is available, but it costs nothing to ask, and it closes a gap that many practitioners don’t think to close.

Final Word

None of this requires new legislation and none of it depends on a state banning a particular payment method. It requires elder advisors and practitioners to recognize that AI voice cloning hasn’t just created a new scam; it has quietly invalidated an assumption baked into decades of standard drafting, and it has done so on both sides of the transaction. A person's "voice" used to be a reliable form of authentication, for the person asking for help and for the person authorized to give it. It no longer is either. Estate and elder law documents that still implicitly rely on “sounds like family” or “sounds like the agent” as a security check are already out of date, whether or not the families who signed them know it yet.

The clients who will be safest going forward aren’t the ones who happened to see a warning about grandparent scams on the news. They’re the ones whose planning was built by someone who understood that a convincing voice, on either end of the call, is no longer reliable proof of anything at all.

Selecting a Corporate Trustee: Using the 2025 America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies Guide

Choosing the right trustee to manage a trust is a pivotal decision to protect your assets and ensure your wishes are honored. For those considering a corporate trustee, The Wealth Advisor offers its 2025 America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies guide, accessible at The Wealth Advisor’s website. This resource highlights top trust companies known for advisor-friendly services, offering a starting point for selecting a professional trustee. 

Corporate trustees aren’t ideal for everyone, however, with drawbacks like high costs, bureaucracy, and a potentially impersonal approach, especially for vulnerable or impaired beneficiaries. In traditional aging-in-place planning, utilizing a family trustee and incorporating a Private Care Agreement can enhance your strategy by managing care costs, incentivizing trusted family members to provide or oversee care, and facilitating asset transfers that, if structured properly, avoid Medicaid eligibility issues. This article explores how to use the guide, the pros and cons of corporate trustees, and how a Private Care Agreement can complement your plan, whether or not you use a corporate trustee.

Understanding the 2025 America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies GuideThe 2025 America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies guide, published by The Wealth Advisor, profiles leading trust companies that excel in collaborating with financial advisors to manage trusts effectively. It details each company’s history, leadership, services, and strengths, managing collectively over $438 billion in assets (per prior editions). The guide emphasizes firms that provide tax savings, legal protection, and tailored planning, making it a valuable tool for identifying corporate trustees suited to aging-in-place or elder law needs. For those establishing trusts to fund home care, accessibility modifications, or legacy planning, this guide streamlines the selection process.Why Consider a Corporate Trustee?Corporate trustees offer distinct advantages for managing trusts:

1. Expertise and Continuity: Corporate trustees bring professional knowledge in trust administration, tax compliance, and investment management. Unlike individual trustees, who may become unavailable, corporate trustees ensure long-term continuity.
2. Impartiality: As neutral parties, corporate trustees minimize family conflicts over asset distribution or trust management.
3. Resources: Companies like those in the guide (e.g., The Private Trust Company or South Dakota Trust Company) have robust systems for handling complex trusts, including legal and financial expertise.

For aging-in-place planning, a corporate trustee can manage financial tasks like paying bills or funding care, allowing you to focus on living comfortably at home, and/or allowing family to provide and support care for you at home.Key Disadvantages of Corporate TrusteesDespite their benefits, corporate trustees can have significant drawbacks:

1. Cost: Fees, often a percentage of assets or flat annual charges, can be substantial and erode trust funds, especially for smaller trusts. Review fee structures in the guide’s profiles.
2. Bureaucracy: Institutional processes can lead to delays or inflexibility, such as slow approvals for care-related distributions.
3. Lack of Personal Touch: Corporate trustees may prioritize protocol over empathy, which is problematic for vulnerable or impaired beneficiaries who need advocacy but can’t self-advocate.  
4. Limited Personalization: Corporate trustees may struggle to address unique family dynamics or non-financial needs, such as coordinating with caregivers.

Enhancing Your Plan with a Private Care AgreementA Private Care Agreement (also called a Personal Care Agreement) is a legal contract between you and a trusted family member or individual to provide or manage care services in exchange for reasonable compensation. This tool can complement a trust managed by a corporate trustee and address aging-in-place needs while aligning with Medicaid planning. Here’s how it works and why it’s beneficial:

1. Managing Care Costs: A Private Care Agreement formalizes payments to a family member for caregiving tasks (e.g., personal care, meal preparation, or managing home modifications). By setting a fair market rate, you can keep care costs manageable compared to professional agencies, which are often more expensive.
2. Incentivizing Family Involvement: The agreement encourages trusted family members to commit to providing or overseeing care, ensuring consistency and a personal touch that corporate trustees may lack. For example, a family member can coordinate with caregivers or monitor your well-being, complementing the trustee’s financial management.
3. Medicaid-Compliant Asset Transfers: If structured properly, payments under a Private Care Agreement are considered compensation for services, not gifts, and thus do not count as improper asset transfers that could trigger Medicaid’s five-year look-back period. To ensure compliance, the agreement must:
   • Be in writing and signed before services are provided.
   • Specify services, frequency, and fair market compensation (consult local rates for caregivers).
   • Be approved by your elder law attorney to avoid Medicaid penalties.
4. Integration with a Trust: A corporate trustee can distribute funds from the trust to fulfill the Private Care Agreement, ensuring payments are made as agreed. This structure maintains professional oversight while prioritizing personalized care.

When selecting a corporate trustee from the guide, ask if they have experience managing trusts that fund Private Care Agreements. Ensure they can handle distributions for care-related expenses promptly and understand Medicaid-compliant structures.Special Considerations for Vulnerable BeneficiariesTrusts for aging-in-place or elder law often involve vulnerable beneficiaries, such as those with cognitive decline or disabilities. Corporate trustees provide stability but may lack the empathy or flexibility needed to advocate for these individuals. For example, they may not proactively adjust distributions for changing care needs (e.g., increased support due to health decline). A Private Care Agreement can bridge this gap or offer a non-institutional alternative by designating a family member or members to oversee care, ensuring the beneficiary’s needs are met with compassion.
To further protect vulnerable beneficiaries, appoint a trust protector. This independent third party (e.g., an attorney) oversees the corporate trustee’s actions, ensuring they align with the trust’s purpose and the beneficiary’s best interests. A trust protector can intervene if the trustee is unresponsive or fails to accommodate a Private Care Agreement’s requirements. When reviewing companies in the guide, confirm their willingness to work with trust protectors.How to Use the Guide to Select a Corporate TrusteeTo choose a corporate trustee using the 2025 America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies guide, follow these steps:

1. Review Profiles: Examine each company’s services, leadership, and expertise. Prioritize firms with experience in elder law or trusts funding aging-in-place needs, such as home care or Private Care Agreements.
2. Assess Advisor-Friendliness: Choose companies that collaborate well with advisors, as highlighted in the guide, to ensure seamless coordination with your elder law attorney or planner.
3. Evaluate Costs and Services: Compare fee structures and ensure they align with your trust’s size and complexity. Check for flexibility in handling care-related distributions.
4. Consider Jurisdiction: Some firms operate in states like South Dakota with favorable trust laws (e.g., no state income tax), which can enhance tax planning.
5. Inquire About Private Care Agreements: Contact shortlisted companies to confirm they can manage trusts funding Private Care Agreements and handle Medicaid-compliant distributions.
6. Assess Support for Vulnerable Beneficiaries: Ask how the trustee addresses the needs of impaired beneficiaries, including communication with caregivers and flexibility for discretionary distributions.
7. Incorporate a Trust Protector: Draft your trust to include a trust protector to oversee the corporate trustee, especially if a Private Care Agreement is involved.
8. Consult Your Financial Advisor or Planner:  Your financial planner or wealth advisor might offer insights or alternatives;  an advisor's prior relationship with a trustee might be more reliable than selecting from even a curated list of capable advisors.    

When to Choose an Individual Trustee InsteadAn individual trustee, such as a family member, may offer a more personal approach, especially when paired with a Private Care Agreement and/or a proactive lifetime planning trust. An individual can provide or oversee care directly, ensuring empathy and responsiveness. Individual trustees may, however, lack the expertise or impartiality of corporate trustees. A hybrid approach, such as naming a corporate trustee with an individual co-trustee or caregiver under a Private Care Agreement, can balance professionalism with personalized care.Final ThoughtsThe 2025 America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies guide is an excellent resource for identifying reputable corporate trustees to support your aging-in-place or elder law plan. By carefully reviewing the guide, you can select a trustee with the expertise to manage your trust effectively. However, corporate trustees come with challenges, including high costs, bureaucracy, and a potentially impersonal approach, which can be problematic for vulnerable beneficiaries.
Consult your elder law attorney to integrate a Private Care Agreement with your trust and ensure Medicaid compliance. By combining the guide’s insights with a tailored caregiving strategy, you can create a robust plan that supports aging in place with security and compassion.
Finally, consider the following: 

• Unpacking Trustees- Primary, Successor, and Special Trustees, Trust Protectors and More 
•  Questions to Ask Before Serving as Trustee
•  New Guides Help Those Appointed to Manage Someone Else's Money
•  The Obligations of a Fiduciary 

Source: "America’s Most Advisor-Friendly Trust Companies 2025," The Wealth Advisor