Everything You Need to Know About Beneficiary Designations
What is a Trust? A Trust is a legal entity involving three roles: The Grantor or “Trustor”, the Trustee, and the Beneficiary. The Grantor (the creator of the trust) will give the Trustee the right to hold and manage property...more
Preparing for 2026 - Four ways to build flexibility into your estate plan - January 1, 2026, is a significant date for estate planning. On that day, the federal gift and estate tax exemption amount set by the Tax Cuts...more
In the most recent installment of the McGuireWoods Fiduciary Advisory Services annual multipart series on recent fiduciary cases, developments in the law concerning various topics are examined through the following... ...more
In re Esther Kratzer Revocable Trust & In re Wendell Kratzer Revocable Trust, Docket Nos 357860, 357861 (Mich Ct App Mar 23 2023) (unpublished). Wendell and Esther Kratzer, husband and wife, had four children including...more
Retitling your assets to conform with your desired plan is essential to successful estate planning. Whether this means changing ownership of an asset altogether, adding a joint owner, or changing a beneficiary designation,...more
As our loved ones get older, we want to ensure that they have planned for their future. This often means having an estate plan in place to handle the distributions of their assets upon their passing or to plan for their...more
Sanford Babbitt, Charlie Babbitt’s estranged father, died. Charlie returns home and finds out he is only receiving a car and prize-winning roses, and that all of his father’s other assets have been left in trust for the...more
In an opinion released last week, the Minnesota Court of Appeals rejected a petition to modify the terms of a trust to allow for the early distribution of trust assets to the beneficiaries. The court also denied the...more
David F. Johnson presented “Trustee’s Obligation to Inform Beneficiaries: Avoiding Breach of Fiduciary Duty Claims” to a national audience on November 16, 2021, via Strafford publishing with his co-presenter Scott E. Rahn,...more
Effective January 1, 2020, the new Illinois Trust Code (ITC) will replace the Illinois Trusts and Trustees Act, ushering in several changes of note for fiduciaries. In light of the ITC, fiduciaries and estate planners should...more
In the most recent installment of the McGuireWoods Fiduciary Advisory Services annual multipart series on recent fiduciary cases, developments in the law concerning various topics are examined through the following: Smith...more
In the most recent installment of the McGuireWoods Fiduciary Advisory Services annual multipart series on recent fiduciary cases, developments in the law concerning various topics are examined through the following: - ...more
In the most recent installment of the McGuireWoods Fiduciary Advisory Services annual multipart series on recent fiduciary cases, developments in the law concerning various topics are examined through the following: - In re...more
Circumstances, laws, and taxes all change. And, when they do, many settlors don’t want their beneficiaries to have to go into court to get permission to roll with the changes. That’s why you often find a trust provision...more
June Interest Rates for GRATs, Sales to Defective Grantor Trusts, Intra-Family Loans and Split Interest Charitable Trusts The June § 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs, CLTs, QPRTs and GRATs...more
Many people use a revocable trust as part of their estate plan because of its probate avoidance and privacy benefits after death. In addition, many people, whether using a will or a revocable trust, want their beneficiary to...more
In re Estate of House, 2014 Wash. App. LEXIS 3006 (Wash. Ct. App. 2014) - A release waiving any and all claims that the parties may have or may acquire, bars recovery for unknown claims existing at the time the release...more