How Much Can a Trustee Charge in California?

You’re in one of three seats. Maybe you’re settling a parent’s trust and the family are already debating every dollar. Maybe you’re the professional (an accountant, maybe an attorney) who just got asked to serve as successor trustee. Or you’re the beneficiary doing math on what the corporate trustee is charging. Different seats, same three statutes.

If you’re still getting your bearings, start with what trust minutes are and why California leans on them so heavily. And every seat eventually runs into the same opening question. What does the trust instrument say?

Start with § 15680. If the settlor wrote a fee into the instrument, whether a percentage, a flat dollar figure or an hourly rate, that provision controls, and courts enforce it even when beneficiaries think it generous. The same section lets a court fix greater or lesser compensation, but only in three situations: the trustee’s duties turned out substantially different from what the settlor contemplated, the compensation is inequitable or unreasonably low or high, or extraordinary circumstances justify a change. Any such order is prospective only under § 15680(c), so a court can shape the fee going forward and it can’t reach back and rewrite amounts you already took.

Say the instrument is silent about money. Then § 15681 fills the gap, and the trustee is entitled to reasonable compensation under the circumstances. That’s the entire test. No schedule, no filing, no percentage floor. There’s also no prior court approval to wait on, and you account for the fee periodically under § 15682.

If a judge ever has to set or adjust the number, the working list comes from Rule 7.776 of the California Rules of Court. Be precise about what that is. The factor list comes from a court rule, not from statute, and lay pages mix those up all the time. A court weighing a trustee fee looks at:

• the gross income of the estate
• the success or failure of the administration
• whether the trustee brought unusual skill or expertise to the job
• fidelity, or its absence, in handling the trust
• the risk and responsibility the trustee assumed
• time spent
• local custom (what settlors, courts, and corporate trustees actually charge in the area)
• whether the work was routine or demanded more-than-ordinary skill

In practice, a family trustee running a brokerage account, a house and a checking account gets measured against the routine end of that list. Corporate trustees quoting 1% and up are selling more-than-ordinary skill, and they can show it when asked.

With no statutory schedule, custom carries the context. California fiduciary practice runs near 1% to 1.5% of trust assets per year, or roughly $100 to $175 an hour and up for professional trustees. Corporate fiduciaries historically priced the first bracket lower, closer to half a percent, though many now quote 1% and beyond (all market numbers, not law, and a judge will still ask what the work actually took). For a smaller estate, the same math appears in the Florida trustee fees breakdown, which shows how a state with a trust statute but no table handles fee custom.

Probate Code § 15683 settles the question that starts arguments at Thanksgiving. When two or more people serve, compensation is apportioned among the co-trustees according to the services each actually rendered, unless the instrument says otherwise. A trustee who did ninety percent of the work is owed roughly ninety percent of the fee. Where the split isn’t obvious (one sibling manages the rental house, an accountant serves, one cousin holds a securities license), the minutes should say who did what, and when. If the document promises equal shares, the statute bows to it.

Family trustees in California take a fee all the time, and plenty of them take nothing. Sometimes the choice is freely made, sometimes the trustee gets talked into it, and plenty more would rather apologize publically for asking than sign a waiver they didn’t understand. Either way, the decision is yours to make with your eyes open.

Two rules before you sign anything. First, California restricts when a trustee can be made to waive compensation. The rules are technical, so get advice before signing a waiver. Second, if your trustee is also the trust’s attorney, § 15687 limits that dual compensation and voids waiver arrangements in certain setups, with an exception carved out for relatives of the settlor.

California trustees owe beneficiaries information, and the fee should be the least surprising number in any accounting. Before the first fee is taken, write down the basis in the minutes of the meeting where you set it, whether that’s what the instrument says or the factors you’d point to if a beneficiary asked (our walk-through of how to write trust minutes skips the theory and shows the page). Then keep the entry with everything else. The trust record-keeping requirements explain how long records should stick around.

The habit compounds. Keeping a clean file is half of what the trust minutes requirements in California are really about, and a fee documented in minutes needs nobody’s word behind it.