The lawyer-agent owes an equity-based fiduciary duty of undivided loyalty to the client-principal. Incidents of that overarching duty are the sub-duties of confidentiality and full disclosure. Assume a lawyer proposes to...more
Classic equity doctrine. By the 1940s, it was settled law that a funded revocable inter vivos trust with multiple beneficiaries was a true trust. See Nat’l Shawmut Bnk v. Joy, 53 N.E.2nd 113 (1944). It was not merely a failed...more
The 2027 Edition of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook, due out in mid-December of 2026, is a work in progress. Chapter 10 is being repurposed to house a one-stop digest and compilation for trust scriveners of the...more
In Inwood Nat’l Bank v. Fagin, Christy Fagin, owner of over two million shares of Inwood Bancshares, Inc., which was her separate property, entered into a trust with her husband Kyle as the beneficiary. 706 S.W.3d 342 (Tex....more
Advisory: This posting assumes knowledge of the difference between a power of attorney and a power of appointment. A legally incompetent trust-settlor cannot exercise a reserved right of amendment or revocation. Recall that...more
It has long been settled that one via a will may effectively “pour over” one’s real and personal property into an inter vivos trust. See §2.1.1 of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook (2026), the relevant portions of which...more
Assume trustee of an irrevocable inter vivos trust leases entrusted land to an entity that employs the trustee. All rents properly accrue to the trust estate. The beneficiaries assert, however, that the trustee may have...more
What is a revocable trust and why should you have one if you are a homeowner, a business owner, a licensed professional, have substantial investments, or are part of a blended family? A revocable trust is somewhat like a...more
Consider the following situation. Settlor owns a thousand acres of land in a domestic-asset- protection haven (DAPT state). While he is alive, he transfers in trust the land to a corporate trustee that does business...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
In International Rescue Committee v. Trustee of the Wylie Street Emergency Fund, 537 P.3d 30 (2023), the Supreme Court of Idaho cited Black’s Law Dictionary (11th ed. 2019) as authority for the proposition that “a person can...more
In Goepp v. Comerica Bank & Trust, N.A., the settlors created inter vivos trusts and their three children were the remainder beneficiaries. No. 03-19-00485-CV, 2021 Tex. App. LEXIS 5461 (Tex. App.—Austin July 9, 2021, no pet....more
In the next webinar in our Estate Planning 101 series, wealth preservation attorney Whitney Patience O’Reilly will discuss the basics of trusts. She will review the differences between revocable and irrevocable trusts and...more
In Yowell v. Granite Operating Co., the Texas Supreme Court reviewed the validity of an interest in a mineral lease regarding the rule against perpetuities (“Rule”). No. 18-0841, 2020 Tex. LEXIS 425 (Tex. May 15, 2020)....more
California's statutory definition of "security" lists by name two types of trust certificates - collateral trust certificates and voting trust certificates. Cal. Corp. Code § 25109. Both of these certificates are also found...more
On Friday, February 15, 2019, Governor Northam approved House Bill 2526 (“HB2526”), which will change the definition of “resident estate or trust” to no longer include an estate or trust being administered in the...more
A Power of Attorney is an important estate planning tool that allows an individual (the “Agent”) to act on behalf of another person (the “Principal”) in financial and other matters without involving the probate court. A new...more
In Gordon v. Gordon, a man and his wife executed a revocable trust agreement and began to fund the trust. No. 11-14-00086-CV, 2016 Tex. App. LEXIS 3357 (Tex. App.—Eastland March 31, 2016, no pet. history). The couple later...more
There have been a number of changes to EU laws recently that have had, or will have, a direct impact on your clients who have connections with France. There are six stand-out issues that are worth careful and immediate...more
The Anglo-American trust is an invention of the judiciary, specifically the English Court of Chancery. The will, a testamentary instrument, on the other hand, is a creature of statute. The testamentary trust is a product of...more
It is common for the accounting clause of an inter vivos trust instrument to contain a provision along the lines of the following: “The written approval of such an account by the person or persons thus entitled to such...more
Section 603 of the Uniform Trust Code provides that while a trust is revocable and the settlor has capacity to revoke the trust, rights of the beneficiaries, such as the equitable remaindermen, are subject to the control of,...more
The constructive general inter vivos power of appointment is the product of the marriage of power of appointment doctrine and creditors’ rights doctrine. It is a topic that is taken up in §4.1.3 of Loring and Rounds: A...more
Section 25019 of the Corporations Code defines “security” broadly by listing a broad range of items that is substantially, but not exactly, the same found in Section 2(a)(1) of the Securities Act of 1933. See “Security”...more