Midland States Bank

Poor Estate Management

If anyone is considering using Midland States Bank for estate or trust planning and administration, I’d urge you to be careful and do your due diligence. I’ll first say that I am a CPA with experience in corporate and estate tax/management who tried to step in and help. My experience over the last 2+ years is that this group fails to properly adhere to the industry standards and fiduciary responsibilities of a trustee. They fail to focus on the beneficiaries but instead focus on the bank/trustees wealth maximization. They hold monies of outside business shareholders that are not related to the estate/decedent as if they are part of the estate itself, take an excessive amount of time to liquidate assets (more than 14 months for an on-line land auction), and continue to hold an astronomical amount of the estate and shareholders funds that far exceeds any potential liabilities, with none known after 2 years time. They have made multiple mistakes in application of received funds, failed to ensure maximum value was received for property and sold items from the business that business owners stated they wanted to purchase. Those owners were told it had to be sold at auction and would be notified when they could bid. Assets were instead sold to unnamed parties with no notification and not at auction. Additionally they fail to provide proper documentation and full tax return copies on all accounts to the proper parties, even when requested on multiple occasions. Their ability to communicate is almost non-existent, even when escalating to upward management.

Given their experiences, impacted businesses shareholders and estate beneficiaries chose to reach out to multiple CPAs and attorneys to confirm consensus that this was being handled not just poorly, but in a grossly improper and egregious manner. The family/shareholders hired an attorney of their own to get the business funds not owned by the estate released, funds Midland knew they had no legal right to hold as part of the estate based on atty discussions. I myself had previously discussed the topic with both Connie Bontz and her manager Nicole Fasano. The hired attorney then brought it to their attention that the trust documents allowed for them to be terminated. At that time Ms Bontz agreed to disperse the business and rather than doing the legal thing timely, they continued to drag the process out and delay payments to the S-Corp Shareholders for more than 2.5 months while trying to blame others. It took re-clarifying we’d terminate them to get it. They paid out one business but not the other, after they had agreed to do so in writing. They continue to hold this businesses funds from its shareholders, and the estate funds from their proper owners, and not just a reasonable holdback amount, but the very large remainder of the estate that didn’t automatically transfer to heirs. They are stating it is the “policy and decision of Midland States Bank Fiduciary Review Committee to NOT make ANY distributions to beneficiaries from the estate or trust until we have received the federal estate tax closing letter from the IRS”. This can be a 2-4 year time frame.

The family and shareholders had preferred to try to make the relationship work so as to not add a complicated transfer part way through, esp at the point everything is in cash and is beyond the creditors claim period, but Midland and Connie Bontz continue to make that nearly impossible. The level of apathy/ignorance/incompetence I’ve witnessed is infuriating as a professional accountant. No family should EVER have to go through this with a paid trustee, one who has the moral, legal and fiduciary responsibility to manage funds with the beneficiaries interest as a priority over their own wealth gain.