Equity not the law is the jurisprudential context. Assume trustee without authority self-deals with trust estate. Absent an applicable statute of limitations, laches doctrine governs whether the dilatory beneficiary is...more
If you’ve ever cracked open the California Probate Code and thought, “There has to be a translator for this,” you’re not alone. Between dense statutory language, cross-references that send you in circles, and provisions that...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
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
Irrevocable trusts are a common instrument used to reduce estate taxes, shield assets from creditors or lawsuits, or bypass probate. The creator of a trust (the “Settlor”) transfers their ownership interest in an asset to the...more
Assume a parcel of real estate was the subject of an irrevocable express trust until the trustee in breach of trust deeded the title to himself, ostensibly free of trust. Our self-dealing trustee is hereinafter referred to as...more
The Virginia General Assembly passed several laws that affect trust and estate litigation in Virginia in 2025. They include more protections for estate planners, simplification of transfer-on-death deed revocation under...more
At the intersection of incorporation-by-reference doctrine in the testamentary context and trust jurisprudence are several traps for unwary estate planners and trial lawyers. The doctrine sets forth conditions that must be...more
This posting is about In Matter of Peterson Family Irrevocable Trust, 333 A.3d 453 (Penn. Super. 2025) and the general unawareness that apparently prevailed in the litigation of a relevant and critical provision of...more
In Hooten v. Collins, a dispute arose between the trustee of a Texas trust and a beneficiary who resided overseas regarding the distribution of trust assets, which primarily consisted of real estate in Texas. No....more
Some administered charitable gifts may qualify as “charitable trusts” under the Uniform Trust Code (UTC) and as “institutional funds” under the Uniform Prudent Management of Institutional Funds Act (UPMIFA). An “institutional...more
Consider the lawyer who lacks a working familiarity with trusts, and with estate planning generally. He prudently and ethically refers a client in need of an estate plan to a well-respected lawyer who also happens also to be...more
Intro. The Uniform Trust Code (UTC) is a mere aggregation of tweaks to the corner of equity jurisprudence that long ago gave birth to and currently stewards the trust relationship, hereinafter “the background trust law.”...more
When hostilities break out between individual co-trustees, incumbent trust counsel faces a representation conundrum. In §8.8 of Loring and Rounds: A Trustee’s Handbook (2025), see appendix below, we grapple with the...more
While PC software programs are a practical improvement over the trustee’s hard-copy ledger book, when it comes to keeping track of trust income and principal these programs still require serious clerical monitoring on the...more
Assume the deceased settlor of a trust had intended that his niece be included in the beneficiary class, but his estate-planning attorney had negligently made no provision for her in the governing instrument. After settlor’s...more
Representing a client in a trust case? A signed mediation settlement agreement (MSA) needn’t mean that your work is done. The requirement of a signed final MSA, while indispensable, nevertheless can present serious challenges...more
In an external contract-based or tort-based dispute between the trustee and a third party to the trust relationship, the beneficiaries are generally not necessary parties. But all beneficiaries (of an irrev. trust) whose...more
Many of my JDSUPRA postings, a full catalog of which may be found below, are about the doctrinal incoherence that is being inflicted on the institution of the trust by legislative intrusions into equity doctrine, intrusions...more
An incident of the trustee’s duty to be generally prudent, to account (or report) to beneficiaries, and to refrain from breaches of the duty of undivided loyalty, such as engaging in unauthorized self-dealing, is the...more
Many of my prior JDSUPRA postings caution that codification of the law of trusts, such as the Uniform Trust Code (UTC), are only partial codifications. See the catalogue of my prior postings below. There is much prevailing...more
Equity’s maxims have many jurisprudential functions, one critical function being to sinew the equitable principles that regulate the law of trusts. A court that is saddled with sorting out the rights, duties and obligations...more
September 2024 AFRs and 7520 Rate - The September 2024 Section 7520 rate for use with estate planning techniques such as CRTs, CLTs, QPRTs and GRATs is 4.8%, a decrease from the August 2024 rate of 5.2%. The September...more
Recently, Michigan added a new section to the trust code, making it possible for trust settlors to create “quiet” or “silent” trusts in Michigan. As the name implies, in a silent trust arrangement, a trustee is not required...more