It's the corporate trustees who must thoroughly understand the constraints of the trust agreement so they can make sound decisions about distributing assets. That expertise is a big advantage. The alternative solution, which is letting the spouse handle the assets, can lead to trouble if the deceased spouse's children disagree with how the assets are distributed. 

To illustrate this point, I'll describe a situation one of my clients faced several years ago.

My client, we'll call her Jane, was a prima ballerina when she met her husband-to-be, we'll call him John. When he saw her perform in the Pacific Northwest Ballet's rendition of The Nutcracker, he was done for. When she met him at the post-performance reception, she also fell head over heels. Unfortunately, this love was a little complicated from the start. John, a successful contractor, was a recent divorcé with two teenage children. The divorce was a difficult one, and the children did not want their parents to split. Needless to say, they did not immediately love their new stepmother, Jane. However, in time their animosity evolved into amicability. 

Early in their marriage, John and Jane arranged to have John's premarital assets automatically transferred into an income trust for Jane with John's children named as beneficiaries of the trust at Jane's death, should John die before Jane. And that's exactly what happened, only 20 years earlier than the couple anticipated. 

Although John's passing initially brought Jane and the children closer, their relationship quickly soured again when the children learned they would not be inheriting their father's assets immediately. The dynamics became even more awkward when Jane explained to the children that they would not receive the assets until she passed away, and until she did she would be the one to authorize discretionary distributions from the trust to them. 

Since Jane was only 47 at the time, she and the children were both upset at the prospect of living with this awkward arrangement for the next 50 years, give or take. Instead of spending half a lifetime filled with not-so-precious moments, Jane decided to delegate her fiduciary responsibility to my firm, Laird Norton Tyee, which offers corporate trustee services. For the last 11 years, we have managed the trust on Jane and John's behalf. 

As a corporate trustee, I help clients like Jane understand my firm's job, which is to do the following for all the trusts we manage: 

Govern distributions for the specific needs identified in the trust agreement; 

Authorize discretionary needs identified by the beneficiaries; 

Discreetly investigate the nature of an unusual request for funds;