Fiduciary Services

Choosing an effective fiduciary (trustee or executor) to look after your resources and carry out your wishes is one of the most critical aspects of a good estate and wealth management plan. After all, this is the person who will assist you with the management of your assets now and provide for the proper administration of your probate and trust assets after you are gone.  We can help you accomplish your goals by serving as trustee or executor for you and your beneficiaries. As trustee, we carefully manage and protect your trust assets, distribute income and principal according to the trust document and applicable trust law, and provide accurate and timely reporting regarding all trust activities. We are honored by client requests to serve as a trustee or executor and consider this work to be a high calling. ​Often, we serve as co-trustee of a revocable trust together with a client who has created and funded a trust for the client’s own benefit during life. In other cases, we serve as trustee where a client has funded a trust for others during the client’s life or at death.

Why Do Lawyers Make Effective Trustees?
We are trained and experienced in trust law, estate and charitable planning, taxation, real estate, business planning, probate law, and estate settlement. We are often involved in developing a client’s overall estate and wealth management plan. Those skills and experience, backed by solid investment research and sound judgment, are the hallmarks of a good trustee. At Macatawa Law PLC, a qualified attorney, not the firm, serves as trustee. This personal responsibility results in a high level of personal service to our fiduciary services clients.

Philosophy and Approach
As trustee, we strive to preserve and enhance the value of our clients’ assets, both in absolute dollars and in purchasing power. Achieving these investment objectives and building a family’s wealth require a long-term perspective and a focus on companies with growing earnings and strong balance sheets. It calls for a disciplined approach where success is measured over several years rather than a few fiscal quarters. Typically, a trust’s investment objectives lead us to structuring a diversified trust investment portfolio with appropriate investments across asset classes and industry and economic sectors, offering the prospect of substantial growth in earnings and value over the longer term. Because we are often involved in developing a client’s overall estate and wealth management plan, we also take into consideration the client’s real estate holdings, business interests, significant items of personal property, life insurance, and retirement plan assets.

How Do We Make Investment Decisions?
We do not provide investment advice. Instead, we rely on a few exceptional registered investment advisory firms focused on providing investment advice to trusts, foundations and other family enterprises. We work with the investment advisor and the client, or the beneficiaries, to develop a tailored, comprehensive investment and trust management policy to guide the long-term investment and operation of each trust. Typically, the equity positions in our trusts are comprised of individual stocks. Owning individual stocks avoids the front- and back-end load fees and internal operating charges of mutual funds. In addition, individual stock portfolios allow us to control the realization of taxable income in each trust. We seek companies that have high-quality management, transparent earnings, make products that contribute positively to society, operate with low debt, and account to their shareholders honestly. We hold cash in money market funds that invest in U.S. Treasury issues. We purchase U.S. Treasury bonds and high-quality corporate bonds as income investments and to preserve liquidity. Where appropriate we also use municipal bonds, real estate investments, venture capital opportunities, and other alternative investments. We meet regularly with independent investment professionals who share their experience and recommendations with us.

How Do We Deliver Trust Services?
Our staff is responsible for safekeeping trust assets, collecting and distributing income, processing securities transactions, and maintaining necessary account records. We employ leading technology, custodial and other service providers to deliver excellent, institutional grade services. Our long-term relationships allow us to obtain institutional, rather than retail, pricing on investment advisory, custodial, brokerage and other financial services.  Our fees are transparent.  Our fiduciary services include:​

  • Secure 24/7 online access to trust information

  • Easy-to-understand client statements

  • Investment performance reports

  • Timely distributions of income and principal

  • Bill paying if desired

  • Gift processing

  • Making distributions to beneficiaries

We Work With Your Other Trusted Advisors
We work with your accountant, insurance agent, and other professional advisors to ensure that the components of your estate and wealth management plan are integrated.

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