In This Issue:

Who Gets Your IRA? – Six Common Mistakes; Estate Planning for Digital Assets; and Post-Production Issues and Oil & Gas Leases.

Excerpt from Who Gets Your IRA? – Six Common Mistakes:

Do you want your heirs to have to chase after your 401K or IRA money? It is important to make sure you have an up-to-date beneficiary form. On January 26, 2009, the United States Supreme Court unanimously ruled in the case of Kennedy vs. DuPont that the plan administrator was not required to honor a divorce decree. William and Liz Kennedy were married in 1971 while William was an employee of DuPont and a participant in its Savings and Investment Plan. William designated Liz as the sole beneficiary of his plan benefits. When William and Liz divorced in 1994, the divorce decree terminated any of her rights to William’s pension or retirement benefits. William never changed his beneficiary form. When William died in 2001, his estate demanded the plan funds based on the domestic relations order. The DuPont plan administrator refused and disbursed the funds to Liz, in reliance on William’s beneficiary form. The ex-wife, who was still listed on the beneficiary form, gets the money, even though the divorce court ordered her rights terminated and she signed a waiver.