It appears that Gunster Law has billed the account for services that appear to be imaginary. There are several reasons to believe this is true. The account was billed at $385/hr to suppossedly change the situs from Ohio to Florida.

Gunster's bill is based upon the idea that trust situs was moved to Ohio in 2007 and then back to Florida in 2017. In 2007 The trust account was moved in secret. There was no notification to qualified beneficaries about the change in trustee. It is a matter of record and it is documented by an affidavit that was presented at a "Mediation" in 2010. No notice was sent about a proposed situs change to Ohio either. The trust agreement allows the trustee to change the situs but is silent on the process. It is understood that 2007 Florida Law would have to of been applied when the transfer of situs to Ohio supposedly took place. It is understood that after the trustee is changed, if the new trustee wants to change the situs, they must first notify all qualified beneficiaries and give them a window of at least 60 days to object.

Florida State Statute 736.0108 (6) The trustee shall notify the qualified beneficiaries of a proposed transfer of a trust's principal place of administration not less than 60 days before initiating the transfer.

If we had received notice regarding a proposed situs change we would have objected. No notification about a proposed change is situs was provided. According to this consideration the procedure required for change in situs from Florida to Ohio did not occur.

When I asked Wells Fargo for Gunster's invoice I thought Wells Fargo would simply send me the invoice as an email attachment. That didn't happen. Instead Gunster sent me the invoice along with a packet of information that was supposed to justify the bill. Close inspection of that documentation reveals that supposedly, in 2007, LPL subsidiary "Private Trust" was appointed to be the trustee on the same day the situs was changed. According to Florida Law I don't think that can happen. This led to a very simple "Yes" or "No" answer question. I wanted to know if Wells Fargo / Gunster thought it was possible to appoint a trustee and change the situs on the same day. The response I got from Wells Fargo via email is "This is not a "yes" or "no" answer." Subsequent Gunster invoices indicate that the account was billed an additional $894 in order for Wells Fargo to tell us that question could not be answered "yes" or "no."

The document supplied by Gunster which indicates that the trustee was appointed and the situs were changed on the same day is linked below.

*Document provided by Gunster

(If you have trouble vieweing the file linked above please let me know and I can email it to you. There is a snag with certain versions of Mozilla that require you to specify Adobe Acrobat as your viewer. Viewing with IE or Google Chrome should work.)

The fact that Wells Fargo / Gunster can not or will not provide a yes or no answer causes more concern about how business is being conducted.

A 2008 email from Mike Neff is linked below. In that email Mr. Neff informed us that RBC's legal team did a review and determined the situs was Florida.

*Situs declared to be Florida in 2008 email

The letter from Gunster is linked below.

*Gunster Response Letter - appears to misrepsent requirments of Section 3.13 of the trust agreement - avoids YES or NO answer to simple question - offers irrelevant discussion of Ohio Law - makes false accusations.