A trust is usually sold as the way to keep a family out of probate court. When the trust goes wrong, the family ends up there anyway, and often in a harder fight than a will contest would have been.
A beneficiary can make a written demand that the trustee deliver a written statement of accounts covering all transactions since the last accounting or since the trust was created. If the trustee has not delivered it by the ninetieth day after receiving the demand, any beneficiary can sue to compel delivery to all beneficiaries.
Make the demand in writing and date it. The ninety days is the thing that converts a stonewalling trustee into a filed case, and a refusal to account is itself a ground for removal.
Tex. Prop. Code § 113.151.
On the petition of an interested person and after a hearing, a court may remove a trustee and deny part or all of the trustee’s compensation if the trustee materially violated the terms of the trust and the violation caused a material financial loss, if the trustee becomes incapacitated or insolvent, if the trustee fails to make an accounting required by law or by the trust, or if the court finds other cause. A beneficiary, cotrustee, or successor trustee may treat a violation that results in removal as a breach of trust.
Tex. Prop. Code § 113.082.
A statutory probate court has jurisdiction concurrent with the district court over an action by or against a trustee and over an action involving an inter vivos trust, a testamentary trust, or a charitable trust. El Paso County has two statutory probate courts, so the choice is live in every case filed here.
It is a real decision, not a formality. If the trust dispute is tangled up with an estate already pending, keeping it in front of the probate judge who knows the family usually helps. If the claim is a commercial one against a corporate trustee with no probate component, the district court may suit it better. Decide deliberately, before the petition is drafted.
Tex. Est. Code § 32.007; Tex. Gov’t Code § 25.0731(b).
The proof looks familiar: capacity at the time of signing, who arranged the lawyer, who benefited, who was in the room. The procedure does not. A trust amendment is not challenged under the will-contest statute, the deadlines are different, and assuming you have the same two years is a mistake that ends cases. If an amendment concerns you, get the timing question answered first.
See also: breach of fiduciary duty claims and will contests.
Bring the trust instrument and every amendment, whatever accounting you have received, and the dates of your written requests. That is usually enough to tell you whether you have a case and which court it belongs in.
The first conversation is short and free.