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Estate Planning

Wills, Trusts & Estates Prof Blog

A resource to enhance the teaching of courses that address intestate succession, wills, trusts, estate administration, non-probate assets, planning for disability, and other matters pertaining to estate planning.
By Gerry W. Beyer

Post Frequency: 44.9/day

Last Entry: April 01, 2011 at 14:00:00

Upcoming Special Needs Planning CLE

Posted on December 12, 2008
The Academy of Special Needs has announced the 3rd Annual ANSP National Meeting. Here is a description of the conference: Day 1, Special Needs Settlement Planning: Is Your Practice Ready To Meet The Challenge? Join a highly experienced multidisciplinary faculty...

Princeton Settles Money Battle Over Gift

Posted on December 12, 2008
Princeton has settled its dispute with the heirs of the A&P grocery fortune. This has ended a long legal battle over how closely a university must obey the terms of a gift. A&P had given Princeton a $35 million gift...

With Shares Tanking, Think About Gifting

Posted on December 12, 2008
Because stock prices are so low, donors can give much more before the gift tax will kick in. Thus allowing people who receive them a chance to generate wealth as the market recovers. Another consideration is the lifetime $1 million...

Transfer Penalty May Be Hardship When Daughter Refuses to Return Property

Posted on December 11, 2008
A short summary from Elder Law Answers: A Massachusetts court overturns the state Medicaid agency's denial of a waiver of a penalty period that the agency assessed after an applicant's daughter refused to cure a disqualifying transfer by returning property...

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Remainder Interest Vests at Date of Trust Termination, Not When Trust Property Later Distributed

Posted on December 11, 2008
The testator?s will created a trust for her niece, terminating on the earlier of the exhaustion of the trust principal or the niece?s death. The trust was not exhausted at the niece?s death and the trust property therefore was to...

Express Disinheritance of the Testator?s Sister Does Not Prevent the Sister?s Heirs From Taking by Intestacy

Posted on December 11, 2008
The testator?s will gave his entire estate to his mother and expressly left nothing to his half-sister. The mother predeceased the testator who was mother?s only descendant. The disinherited half-sister also predeceased the testator leaving two daughters who survived the...

"Red Raider" to the very end

Posted on December 10, 2008
The following excerpts are from Adam Zuvanich, So, you think you?re a diehard Red Raiders fan?, Lubbock Avalanche-Journal, Dec. 10, 2008: If you claim to be a Texas Tech fan for life, you don?t have to stop there. You can...

Enhanced FDIC protection for trust accounts

Posted on December 10, 2008
Katarinna McBride (Beerman Swerdlove, LLLP, Chicago, Illinois) has recently published her article entitled Estate Planning for FDIC Coverage, 96 Ill. B.J. 590 (2008). She explains how new FDIC rules provide more protection for revocable trusts (up to $250,000 per beneficiary)...

Reducing Illinois Estate Tax

Posted on December 10, 2008
Robert J. Kolasa (Lake Forest, Illinois) has recently published his article entitled How to Use Gifts to Reduce Illinois Estate Taxes, 96 Ill. B.J. 580 (2008). Mr. Kolasa explains that: In 2009, federal and Illinois estate taxes will be "decoupled"...

RAP "outrageous" hypos become reality

Posted on December 10, 2008
When teaching the Rule Against Perpetuities, it is common to explain that in applying the traditional formulation of the Rule, no one is every too old to give birth. This always brings chuckles from students as they consider someone in...

A Roundup of Key Elder Law Numbers for 2009

Posted on December 10, 2008
Elder Law Answers rounds up the figures for 2009 that are frequently used in the elder law practice, including the new Medicaid spousal impoverishment figures and the long-term care insurance deductibility limits.

Malpractice Action Against Attorney Barred By Probate Limitation Period

Posted on December 10, 2008
A short summary from Elder Law Answers: Ruling that a malpractice action against an attorney who drafted a trust amendment is time barred, the Illinois Supreme Court holds that because the plaintiff's injuries did not occur until the decedent's death,...

U.S. Appeals Court Rules Spousal Annuity Is Not an Available Resource

Posted on December 10, 2008
A short summary from Elder Law Answers: The Third Circuit Court of Appeals upholds a community spouse's purchase of an actuarially sound annuity that converts excess resources into protected income. The community spouse was represented by the Pennsylvania ElderLawAnswers member...

Plastic surgery for the dead

Posted on December 09, 2008
According to Diane Mapes, Final touch: A cosmetic lift for your funeral?, MSNBC.com, Dec. 9, 2008: As the population has becoming increasingly sophisticated about procedures to enhance their appearance, so have their requests, morticians say, for smoothing lines, plumping lips...

Benefits May Be Cut Off After Medicaid Agency Decides Irrevocable Trusts Are Available Assets

Posted on December 09, 2008
A Wisconsin appeals court rules that a Medicaid recipient's benefits were properly terminated after the state Medicaid agency changed its interpretation of statutes governing the availability of irrevocable trusts for eligibility purposes. Wisynski v...

Nursing Home Payments Pursuant to Transfer Penalty Are an Allowable Spend-Down Expense

Posted on December 09, 2008
An Indiana appeals court finds that a Medicaid applicant's out-of-pocket nursing home expenses can be applied to her spend-down for non-nursing home benefits even though the applicant was paying the nursing home expenses due to a transfer penalty. Reedy v...

Estate Planning for Business Owners CLE

Posted on December 09, 2008
The American Bar Association Section of Real Property, Trust and Estate Law and the ABA Center for Continuing Legal Education is sponsoring a teleconference and live audio webcast on January 6, 2009 entitled Estate Planning for Business Owners: Recent Developments...

Call for Papers -- Philanthropy Law in the 21st Century

Posted on December 09, 2008
The American College of Trust and Estate Counsel?s Legal Education Committee is organizing the third in a series of academic symposia financially supported by the ACTEC Foundation. The next symposium, Philanthropy Law in the 21st Century, will be held at...

"Dividing the Estate" gets rave review

Posted on December 08, 2008
Earlier on this blog, I discussed the wills & estate themed Broadway play entitled Dividing the Estate. It seems that this play is doing very well as evidenced by a recent review by Terry Teachout which appeared in the November...

Wills & Revocable Trusts -- Should tax apportionment rules be unified?

Posted on December 08, 2008
Ira Mark Bloom (Justice David Josiah Brewer Distinguished Professor of Law, Albany Law School) recently authored an article entitled Unifying the Rules for Wills and Revocable Trusts in the Federal Estate Tax Apportionment Arena: Suggestions for Reform, 62 U...

Apportionment provisions may have unintended consequences

Posted on December 08, 2008
Heather R. Pruger (Executive Notes and Comments Editor, Maryland Law Review) recently authored an article entitled Pfeufer v. Cyphers: Giving the Testator?s Pen Too Much Might?the Unintended Tax Consequences of Innocent Apportionment Language, 67 Md. L...

Non-probate transfers analyzed

Posted on December 08, 2008
Grayson M.P. McCouch (Professor of Law, University of San Diego) recently authored an article entitled Probate Law Reform and Nonprobate Transfers, 62 U. Miami L. Rev. 757 (2008). Here is an excerpt from this article: For over forty years, probate...

Montana Court approves assisted suicide

Posted on December 07, 2008
Judge Dorothy McCarter ruled on Friday (December 5, 2008) that "the Montana constitutional rights of individual privacy and human dignity" give a person who is mentally competent and terminally ill the right to "die with dignity." Thus, doctors may prescribe...

Sunny von Bulow dies

Posted on December 07, 2008
Sunny von Bulow died on December 6, 2008 after spending 28 years in a coma allegedly induced by insulin injections given to her by her husband, Claus von Bulow, who was twice acquitted of the charges in the 1980s. As...

Frequent "Dier" Programs

Posted on December 07, 2008
A person may cease to function as a carbon-based biological life-form many miles from where the person will be buried. Thus, the body needs to be shipped and if the distance is long enough, air travel may be involved. Funeral...

CBGB heirs embroiled in fight

Posted on December 06, 2008
The ownership of the underground rock club, CBGB (New York), is currently in dispute. Here is the sequence of events based on Ben Sisario, Family Discord Over Spoils From the Punk Shrine CBGB, NY Times, Dec. 4, 2008: Hilly and...

Top SSRN Downloads

Posted on December 06, 2008
Here are the top downloads from October 7, 2008 to December 6, 2008 from the SSRN Journal of Wills, Trusts, & Estates Law for all papers announced in the last 60 days. Rank Downloads Paper Title 1 315 2008 Federal...

Are community foundations heading for extinction?

Posted on December 05, 2008
The following excerpts are from Sean Stannard-Stockton, A new role for community foundations, FT.com, Nov. 25, 2008: Community foundations in the US are at risk of becoming irrelevant unless they can transform into trusted donor advisers. Since the founding of...

Valuing Private Equity

Posted on December 05, 2008
The following excerpts are from Jennifer Hughes, A magical mystery tour over private equity valuations, FT.com, Dec. 4, 2008: How can you value a private equity investment? Let me count the ways. Or rather, let the industry come up with...

New Study Confirms 46% Lower Costs for Private Foundations

Posted on December 05, 2008
Foundation Source has recently published the results of a study in an article entitled The Effect of an Outsourced Services Model on the Operating and Administrative Expenses of Private Foundations. Here is a summary of the study as provided by...

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