When a Sibling Trustee Ignores the Trust: Lessons From a 2026 Michigan Case

Many Michigan parents set up a revocable living trust and name one of their children to take over as trustee when they die. It is a natural choice. That child is often the one who lives closest, helped the most, or simply seemed the most organized. But a trustee who is also a beneficiary, and who is also a sibling, is being asked to put personal feelings aside and follow a document exactly as written, even when the document seems unfair to her.

A Michigan Court of Appeals decision issued on July 14, 2026, Ecker v. Ecker Nickel, shows what happens when that goes wrong: a trustee removed by the court, an order to pay rent on the family home, several of her claims against the trust denied, and years of litigation among siblings. Because the decision is published, it is binding law that Michigan trial courts must follow.

What happened

The parents of four adult children created the Mark L. Ecker Trust in 2010 and named their daughter, Karen Nickel, as successor trustee. All four children were beneficiaries. The trust reduced one son’s share of the distributions to account for lifetime gifts the parents had made to him.

In 2016, a document labeled a “First Amendment” to the trust was prepared. It would have deleted that reduction. The father never signed it before he died in 2019. Instead, the signature lines said “see attached,” and the attachment was a writing that Nickel and one of her sisters created months after his death, stating their beliefs about what he wanted and their intention to follow those wishes. The trustee offered no independent evidence that her father had anything to do with the amendment.

After the father’s death, her two brothers became concerned. The trustee refused to give them information about the trust, and she continued to live, without paying rent, in the trust-owned home where she had lived with her parents during the last few years of their lives. The brothers sued. Although she was personally served, the trustee chose not to respond, later explaining that she hoped the family could resolve things out of court. A default was entered.

The probate court removed her as trustee, declared the unsigned amendment invalid, and ordered her to provide an inventory and accounting. She repeatedly failed to do so despite multiple extensions and was eventually held in contempt. She then filed claims against the trust for the care she had given her parents, for her services as a fiduciary, and for legal expenses. After a bench trial, the probate court allowed some of those claims, denied others, and required her to repay certain overpayments. The parties agreed she could stay in the home if she paid rent, and the court set that rent at full fair-market value, plus back rent starting 60 days after her father’s death.

The Court of Appeals affirmed across the board. (The appeal also resolved a procedural question about how trust disputes should be filed in probate court. This article focuses on the trust rulings.)

What Michigan law requires of a trustee

A trustee is a fiduciary, and Michigan’s Estates and Protected Individuals Code, part of the Michigan Compiled Laws (MCL), spells out the duties that come with the job. Among the duties the Court of Appeals summarized in Ecker, a trustee must:

• administer the trust in accordance with its terms and purposes (MCL 700.7801);
• administer the trust solely in the interests of the beneficiaries, and refrain from self-dealing (MCL 700.7802(1) and (2));
• act as a prudent person would in dealing with someone else’s property (MCL 700.7803);
• keep adequate records and keep trust property separate from the trustee’s own property (MCL 700.7811(1) and (2)); and
• keep the qualified trust beneficiaries reasonably informed about the administration of the trust, and promptly respond to a beneficiary’s request for information (MCL 700.7814(1)).

Violating a duty owed to a beneficiary is a “breach of trust” (MCL 700.7901(1)). And a court may remove a trustee only on grounds listed in the statute, including “a serious breach of trust” (MCL 700.7706(2)(a)) and, where the court also determines that removal best serves the purposes of the trust, unfitness, unwillingness, or persistent failure of the trustee to administer the trust effectively (MCL 700.7706(2)(c)).

The rulings worth knowing

The trust controls, not what the trustee believes the parent wanted

The central problem in Ecker was the unsigned amendment. The trustee’s position was that her father had wanted the change and simply became too ill to sign it. The court said that her stated intention to follow those supposed wishes, instead of the trust’s written terms, amounted “for practical purposes” to an attempted amendment of the trust after it had become irrevocable. That was a serious breach of trust and a proper ground for removal.

The court was direct about the principle: the trust’s terms control, not a trustee’s understanding of the settlor’s wishes when those wishes contradict the document. Evidence of what a parent intended generally cannot be considered unless the trust language is ambiguous, and the court found no ambiguity here. The trustee also argued that her parents meant to make her “equal” with siblings who had received lifetime gifts. The trust said no such thing, and the court held that even if the omission was the parents’ oversight, the trustee was not entitled to disregard the trust’s language to correct it after the fact.

Living in the family home: the trust decides who occupies it

The trust held the property “in trust for my immediate family” and said that occupancy of the home would be arranged as determined by a majority vote of the children. No vote ever happened. Instead, while serving as trustee, Nickel arranged exclusive use of the home for herself.

The court held that this was self-dealing and a breach of her duties to administer the trust solely for the beneficiaries and to keep trust property separate from her own. Michigan law protects a trustee who acts in reasonable reliance on the trust’s terms (MCL 700.7906), but that protection did not help her because nothing in the trust reasonably supported her reading. The court also emphasized that she was charged rent for her exclusive use of the home, not merely for living there.

Care for a parent may be presumed free unless you can prove otherwise

The trustee also sought payment for years of caregiving. No one disputed that she had provided some care and should receive some compensation. But as the person making the claim, she had the burden of proving it. She kept no logs or records of the services she provided and offered no expert testimony about their reasonable value. The probate court found her claims exaggerated and inadequately documented, and the Court of Appeals agreed.

The court also applied the presumption, recognized in Michigan case law, that her services to her parents were gratuitous, meaning given without expectation of payment. That presumption depends on the family and household circumstances; it is not a blanket rule covering every service one relative provides another. She did not rebut it; she conceded that she had not thought about getting paid at the time. Separately, a court may reduce or deny a trustee’s claim for compensation or expenses where the trustee has committed a breach of trust (MCL 700.7904(3)), and the court found she had.

Silence and missing records are breaches too, and they get expensive

The court noted that the trustee’s refusal to keep her siblings informed and respond to their requests “directly caused this litigation,” and that her failure to keep adequate records caused the parties and the trust to spend significant resources.

That mattered for attorney fees. Under MCL 700.7904(1), in a proceeding involving the administration of a trust, the court, “as justice and equity require, may award costs and expenses, including reasonable attorney fees, to any party who enhances, preserves, or protects trust property, to be paid from the trust that is the subject of the proceeding.” In Ecker, the brothers’ litigation corrected the trustee’s violations and increased the trust’s value by obtaining rent, so the court upheld an award of their fees. The trustee, by contrast, did not recover all of the fees she requested.

That award is discretionary, not automatic. Another published decision from earlier this year, In re Ashcraft Trust (March 10, 2026), involved a sister who had been removed as co-trustee and was found to have breached her fiduciary duty by using a trust cottage without paying rent. She successfully reduced the rent charge her brothers proposed against her share, then asked to have her legal fees paid from the trust. The Court of Appeals upheld the denial of her request: she had not shown that her efforts enhanced, preserved, or protected the trust property as a whole, and even a party who makes that showing is not guaranteed fees, because the statute leaves the decision to the probate court’s discretion.

What this means for your estate plan

Ecker is a trust-administration case, but most of what went wrong could have been headed off when the trust was written or updated.

If you are creating or updating a trust:

• Finish the paperwork while you can. An unsigned draft did not amend the trust in Ecker. More generally, an amendment must satisfy the method required by the trust and Michigan law. If you want to change something, complete the amendment properly, and do it while you are able to.
• Say who can live in the house, and on what terms. If a child may stay in a trust-owned home after your death, the trust should say so and address rent, expenses, and how long. If you want the children to decide, say how they decide and what happens if they cannot agree.
• If you want a caregiving child paid, put it in writing now. Care provided to a parent may be presumed gratuitous, particularly where it arises from the ordinary family relationship, unless the caregiver can establish a basis for compensation. A written agreement, or a clear provision in your plan, and simple records of the care provided avoid a fight later.
• Account for lifetime gifts expressly. The Ecker trust adjusted one child’s share for lifetime gifts but not the others’. The court enforced the document as written and would not add adjustments the parents left out.
• Choose your trustee with the family dynamics in mind. A child who is also a beneficiary, and especially one living in a trust asset, faces a built-in conflict. Co-trustees, a neutral or professional trustee, or clear reporting requirements in the trust are all worth considering.

If you are serving as a trustee:

• Follow the trust as written, even where you believe your parent would have wanted something different.
• Keep records, keep trust property separate from your own, and answer beneficiaries’ reasonable requests for information promptly.
• Do not use trust property for yourself unless the trust authorizes it. When in doubt, get legal advice before you act, not after your siblings file suit.

If you are a beneficiary with concerns: A trustee must keep qualified trust beneficiaries reasonably informed and must promptly respond to a beneficiary’s request for information about the trust’s administration (MCL 700.7814(1)). Put your requests in writing. A probate court can order an inventory and accounting and, in the right case, remove the trustee.

Frequently asked questions

What are a trustee’s duties in Michigan?

A Michigan trustee must administer the trust according to its terms and solely in the beneficiaries’ interests, avoid self-dealing, act prudently, keep adequate records, keep trust property separate from personal property, and keep qualified beneficiaries reasonably informed, including by responding promptly to requests for information. These duties appear in Michigan’s Estates and Protected Individuals Code, beginning at MCL 700.7801.

Can a trustee be removed in Michigan?

Yes, but only on grounds listed in MCL 700.7706(2). Those include a serious breach of trust, and unfitness, unwillingness, or persistent failure to administer the trust effectively where the court also determines that removal best serves the purposes of the trust. In Ecker v. Ecker Nickel (2026), the Court of Appeals upheld the removal of a trustee who tried to follow an unsigned amendment, lived in the trust’s home exclusively, and refused to give her siblings information.

Can a trustee follow what the parent “really wanted” instead of the written trust?

Generally, no. The trust’s written terms control. Evidence of what the parent intended generally cannot be considered unless the trust language is ambiguous. In Ecker, a trustee’s decision to follow an unsigned amendment based on her belief about her father’s wishes was treated as an attempted amendment of an irrevocable trust and a serious breach of trust.

Can a family member live in a trust-owned house rent-free?

It depends on what the trust says. In Ecker, the trust held the home for the whole immediate family, with occupancy to be decided by a majority vote of the children. Because the trustee took exclusive use without a vote, the court ordered her to pay fair-market rent going forward, plus back rent.

Will a child who cared for a parent be paid from the trust?

Not automatically. Care provided to a parent may be presumed gratuitous, particularly where the services arise from the ordinary family relationship, unless the caregiver can establish a basis for compensation. A child who wants payment must prove the claim, and the lack of records weighs against it. The simplest protection is a written agreement or plan provision made while the parent is living.

Who pays the attorney fees in a Michigan trust dispute?

Generally each side pays its own. But under MCL 700.7904(1), a probate court may order the trust to pay reasonable fees of a party who enhances, preserves, or protects trust property, as justice and equity require. It is discretionary: in In re Ashcraft Trust (2026), the Court of Appeals upheld a denial of fees to a removed co-trustee who had not shown a benefit to the trust as a whole. Separate rules may also apply to a trustee: MCL 700.7904(2) provides for reimbursing a trustee who participates in litigation in good faith, but a court may reduce or deny that reimbursement where the trustee has committed a breach of trust (MCL 700.7904(3)).

Related reading: Michigan estate planning, will vs. revocable living trust in Michigan, and undue influence when a caregiver becomes the heir.

Please note: This article is provided for general educational and informational purposes only and does not constitute legal advice. Reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and the Law Offices of Maynard F. Newman, P.L.L.C. Ecker v. Ecker Nickel and In re Ashcraft Trust are published decisions, but the law may change, and trust disputes turn heavily on the specific language of the trust and the facts of the case; confirm the current law before relying on any summary. You should consult a qualified Michigan attorney about your own circumstances before acting. This content may also be considered attorney advertising.