Guidance on Disagreements Among Co-Successor Trustees

Location: Los Angeles, CA

My grandfather created his trust and pour-over will back in 2013 before his passing. My mom then took over the properties upon his passing as successor trustee, but she could not sell the properties as they were to remain in the trust for her benefit.

Upon my mom’s passing in March of this year, my elder sister and I became co-successor trustees and as the trust states, we must liquidate the real properties and divide the property into equal shares among all the remaining grandchildren (4 + my sister and I.)

He laid out a specific distribution timeline in the trust as well.

However, 4 out of the 6 beneficiaries want to deviate from the trust and instead purchase the properties for themselves. Therefore, they would have to buy out the remaining two, myself being one.

It has now been 6 months since our mom’s passing and nothing more has been done other than multiple consults with numerous attorneys that I have set up. My sister continues to find reasons why she doesn’t want to move forward with one or another. She keeps bringing up property taxes and how we can owe money back etc., and wanting more time to review the trust, although she has been provided with a copy. I just feel like at this point it’s excuses in an attempt to stay on the properties for longer. I have attempted to communicate with her and she is making things difficult or doesn’t respond back.

At this point I’m wondering what I should do to move this process along. I know mediation can’t force her to act, and at the same time I don’t want to run through trust funds over stupid disagreements.. it isn’t fair to everyone.

How should I move forward? Do I need to retain my own attorney to fight her for not upholding her fiduciary duties? Would these funds have to come out-of-pocket or could I use trust funds?

I have tried to meet my siblings in the middle by agreeing to a buyout if possible but if they will continue to make things hard and purposely push out the timeframe to benefit them, I may need to fight for us to follow the trust terms and that means no one gets to stay on the properties.

Note: Aside from trust administration of the properties, my grandfather left some stock (around $300k) which we will need to put through probate since it’s not in the trust. My sister keeps trying to hold off on trust administration until after probate is handled, but multiple attorneys have confirmed that we can do both simultaneously and process multiple distributions if necessary.