Real Estate Licensees: Dual Agency and Fiduciary Duty

  A licensed real estate salesperson has a fiduciary duty equivalent to the duty owed by the employing broker. A dual agent has fiduciary duties to both the buyer and seller. When a broker is the dual agent of both the buyer and the seller in a real property transaction, the salespersons acting under the broker have the same fiduciary duty to the buyer and the seller as the broker. What is that duty? Continue reading

Beneficiaries Have Standing to Sue Trustee of Revocable Trust After Settlor’s Death

  The California Supreme Court reverses the Court of Appeals and holds in Estate of Giraldin in a 4-2 opinion that where the trustee of a revocable trust is other than the settlor, the beneficiaries of a revocable trust have standing to sue the trustee for breach of fiduciary duty committed while the settlor was alive and the trust was still revocable, after the settlor dies.

  In dissent Justice Kennard, with Justice Werdergar concurring, would have upheld the opinion of the Court of Appeals on the theory that the Probate Code only authorizes the decedent’s personal representative to sue on behalf of the beneficiaries in such circumstances; not the beneficiaries individually.