As has been discussed in at least one recent post on this blog, many times trust disputes revolve around whether or not a person has the necessary mental capacity to make or continue to administer a trust. Generally speaking, the law of Minnesota will not acknowledge a trust when the person creating it did not have the mental capacity to do so.
Likewise, a Minnesota court will generally not allow someone to remain in charge of a trust when that person is no longer mentally up to managing the financial affairs of the trust.
While in some cases it is pretty clear that a person who created or was charged with administering a trust is not mentally competent, those cases rarely end up in court. The types of competency cases that do end up in court are usually the hard ones, one in which a person may seem mentally alert in many respects but not in other important areas.
Proving an allegation of mental incompetence is not simply a matter of showing how a person has made some questionable decisions and happens to be older or in declining health. Likewise, defending against an allegation of incompetency is not just a matter of having the creator or administrator of a trust, as the case may be, simply sign an affidavit or show up in court and sound coherent to the judge.
Rather, these types of cases often require a meticulous approach, one that will involve collecting and evaluating both medical and other evidence that tends to show whether or not a person is legally competent to create or administer a trust. In this respect, our law office has the resources and experience to manage a case involving competency thoroughly and efficiently on behalf of our clients.