Everything You Need to Know About Beneficiary Designations
In Gordon v. Gordon, a couple created a revocable trust and named a friend, who provided financial advice, as successor trustee. No. 03-22-00454-CV, 2024 Tex. App. LEXIS 3611 (Tex. App.—Austin May 23, 2024, no pet. history)....more
There is much to commend in O’Brien, Proposing a Model Antilapse Clause, 48 ACTEC L. J. 257 (2023), particularly its flagging of the doctrinal and practical flaws in Uniform Probate Code §2-707, which would apply the...more
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Kratzer Revocable Trust & In re Wendell Kratzer Revocable Trust, Docket Nos 357860, 357861 (Mich Ct App Mar 23 2023) (unpublished).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
When a person dies without a will, the person responsible for managing the estate is called an “administrator”. If the person died with a will, they would normally appoint somebody for this position, an “executor”. Both the...more
Narcotics Anonymous established a revocable trust to manage its literature and other intellectual property assets for the benefit of its many members. A “regional delegate group” filed a petition in Los Angeles probate court...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
Revocable trusts are a ubiquitous part of modern US estate planning because they avoid the delay, cost and publicity inherent in probate administration and, in the international context, because of the certainty they provide...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
While most decisions rendered by the Surrogate’s Court result from an affirmative request for relief, occasionally the court will address an issue on its own motion when justice or the exercise of its inherent or statutory...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
Massachusetts courts have issued decisions on several topics of interest, including whether a revocable spendthrift trust may properly be included in a marital estate, what happens to assets left to a named beneficiary who...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