An executor, administrator, or trustee holds other people’s property. That makes them a fiduciary, and it means the law judges their conduct by a standard well above ordinary carelessness. These are the cases where estate money went somewhere it should not have.
Executors and administrators owe fiduciary duties to the estate’s beneficiaries and creditors. Trustees owe them to the trust beneficiaries. The duty does not depend on whether the will says so. It comes with the office.
The core obligations are loyalty, which means not putting personal interest ahead of the beneficiaries, care in managing the property, and disclosure, which means telling beneficiaries what is happening with their inheritance rather than making them guess.
That last one matters more than people realize. An independent executor’s duty of disclosure exists independently of the formal accounting right, and it does not wait 15 months.
In our experience the recurring patterns are these.
Under Texas Estates Code Section 404.001, 15 months after the clerk first issues letters, any interested person may demand an accounting from an independent executor. The executor must produce a sworn exhibit detailing the property received, what was done with it, debts paid, debts outstanding, property still held, and why the administration should not be closed.
If they do not comply within 60 days, the probate court can be asked to compel it. Further accountings can be demanded at intervals of not less than 12 months.
Most breach cases are built out of what the accounting shows, or out of the fact that no accounting ever came. A fiduciary who will not account is telling you something.
Depending on the facts, the available remedies include recovering the property or its value, disgorgement of profits the fiduciary made from the breach, forfeiture of fiduciary compensation, imposition of a constructive trust on property that was improperly transferred, removal of the fiduciary, and recovery against the bond where one exists.
Removal and damages are different claims and they are normally brought together. Removing an executor stops the bleeding. It does not return what was taken.
Harris County has five statutory probate courts under Texas Government Code Section 25.1031(c), with judges Simoneaux, Medina, Cox, Horwitz, and Watson presiding over Courts 1 through 5 respectively. Courts 1 through 4 sit at 201 Caroline Street; Court No. 5 sits at 1115 Congress Street.
These courts hear suits by or against executors, administrators, guardians, and trustees, with jurisdiction concurrent with the district courts. That is a real advantage. A removal action, a breach of fiduciary duty claim for damages, and a dispute over trust property can be resolved in the same court instead of split between the probate court and a district court.
Where the claim is filed inside that court depends on what it is. Matters principally concerned with administering the estate are core matters and stay in the main cause number. Claims that bear no direct relationship to the administration and could stand as an independent lawsuit are ancillary, and in Harris County they get the original docket number plus a suffix beginning with 4. An estate numbered 123,456 would carry its ancillary matter as 123,456-401. Filing in the wrong place costs time.
Breach of fiduciary duty claims are subject to limitations, and the period depends on the specific claim pleaded and when the breach was or should have been discovered. Fiduciary concealment affects that analysis, which is one reason these cases turn on when the beneficiary actually learned what happened.
Do not treat that as a reason to wait. Evidence disappears, property gets sold to third parties, and money gets spent. The practical deadline is usually earlier than the legal one.
Under the Harris County probate courts’ local rules, cases that have not undergone a previously ordered alternative dispute resolution procedure generally will not be tried, except for good cause. Plan on mediating.
If it does not resolve, you are entitled to a jury. Texas Estates Code Section 55.002 gives a party in a contested probate proceeding the right to a jury trial as in other civil actions. The jury demand has to be filed and the fee paid in time, and the deadline is earlier than people expect.
There are also two stretches of the year when these courts do not set trials: the week of the State Bar’s Advanced Estate Planning and Probate course, and any December week whose Monday falls between the 22nd and the 31st.
We bring and defend fiduciary claims in all five Harris County probate courts. Our minimum engagement is $10,000. These matters are billed hourly against a retainer, and for asset-recovery disputes we will consider a contingent or hybrid arrangement depending on what is recoverable and from whom.
The first conversation is thirty minutes, no charge. Bring the cause number, any accounting you have received, and a short description of what you think happened to the property.
Schedule a consultation or call (800) 521-0230.
