LIVING TRUSTS

Published on: June 30, 2010

Why You Need a Lawyer to Create Your Estate Plan

In past blogs we have discussed the need to have an experienced estate planning lawyer draft your trust. In California, a case has recently been filed against Legal Zoom, an online site that markets wills and trusts without the need to meet with an attorney. The case involves a man with a terminal condition who used Legal Zoom to draft a trust and pour over will. The documents were signed but the trust was never funded because financial institutions that held the man’s money refused to recognize the validity of the documents. The man died without getting the trust funded.

It remains to be seen what the outcome of the case will be but it does highlight the importance of getting a lawyer to draft your revocable trust and companion documents. In most cases, a face to face meeting will elicit important facts so that your trust and other documents accurately reflect what you want to happen after your death.

Some circumstances that dictate hiring an attorney to create an estate plan are the following:

Published on: June 15, 2010

Don’t Forget to Fund Your Trust

by Scott C. Soady

Once your revocable living trust has been created, you need to “fund” the trust with your assets. A trust that is not funded is useless as a vehicle to avoid probate. If you have gone to the time and expense of preparing a trust, you certainly don’t want your heirs to have to go through probate so it is very important that you “fund” your trust.

“Funding” your trust means that you transfer ownership of your assets into the name of your trust. In the case of real property, this means executing a new deed transferring the property from your name as an individual to your name as the trustee of your trust.

In the case of bank accounts, brokerage accounts, stocks, and bonds, you need to show the institution that your trust exists and you want the accounts to be in the name of your trust. Your estate planning attorney should have included a Certificate of Trust in your revocable living trust package, which is a simplified document showing the existence of the trust, the powers of the trustee, and other information about your trust without revealing the dispositive provisions.

Published on: June 7, 2010

Standards for Heath, Education, Support, & Maintenance

by Scott C. Soady

Often trusts provide for the distribution of assets at different intervals. This is a common occurrence where parents want to provide for their children during their minority and then spread out the distributions during adulthood. A typical trust might leave a certain percentage to a beneficiary at age 21, 25, and 30. Other parents may want to provide for distributions at age 25, 30, and the remainder at 35. In the years between the distributions the trustee has the discretion to make distributions for “health, education, support, and maintenance.”

The IRS in Section 2041of the Internal Revenue Code sets out ascertainable standards for “health, education, support, and maintenance.” The Treasury Regulations provide some assistance in knowing what these terms mean. “Health” for example includes “medical, dental, hospital, and nursing expenses” as well as “health maintenance and comfort.” The trustee can probably make distributions that are not strictly medical in nature, maybe food supplements or a item of comfort.

“Education” is more narrowly defined to include college and professional education. Thus if the Trustor wants to expand on that definition to include such things as trade school, art school, travel expenses to and from school, etc., those items should be specifically set out in the trust.

Published on: May 27, 2010

How Can a Trustee Resign?

by Scott C. Soady

A trustee is the person who handles the distributions to the beneficiaries according to the terms of the trust document. Some trusts can go on for years if there are distributions to be made for the benefit of minors or for other reasons. There may be some circumstances where a trustee may wish to resign from his duties as a trustee of a trust before the trust is completely administered. There are basically 4 ways.

1. As Provided in the Instrument. Most trusts by their express provisions allow a current trustee to resign with written notice and an accounting. For example, suppose you are the successor trustee of your parent’s trust and find that you must take a job abroad. If the trust names an alternate successor trustee and specifies that a currently serving trustee may resign by giving written notice to the beneficiaries, it is easy for you to resign. Some trusts also provide that when trustees resign, the resigning trustee must account for the transactions and dispursements he made while acting as Trustee.

2. With a Revocable Living Trust With the Consent of the Trustor. Suppose you are the Co-Trustee of your father’s trust and you want to resign. If your father consents, you can resign and your father can appoint another Co-Trustee if he wishes. It is a good idea to put the consent and resignation in writing. There is no requirement that you give notice to the beneficiaries.

Published on: April 16, 2010

Is a Disinheritance Clause Requiring Adherence to a Particular Faith Valid?

by Scott C. Soady

The Illinois Supreme Court recently held that a Jewish couple’s wish to disinherit any of their grandchildren that married outside their faith was lawful. The particular will had provided that upon the death of the surviving Trustor, if any grandchild had married outside the Jewish faith, their non-Jewish spouse had a year to convert to Judaism. If they did not, the gift would lapse. The Illinois Supreme Court held that the clause was valid as long as the method of disinheritance did not encourage divorce. One of the Justices wrote that the Trustors were “free to distribute their bounty as they saw fit and to favor those grandchildren whose life choices they approved of.”

Restraints on marriage contained in wills or trusts are generally held by the Courts to be void as against public policy. In California, Civil Code section 710 provides that conditions imposing restraints on marriage…. are void. Althought there doesn’t seem to be as yet a case in California involving a clause such as in the Illinois case, it seems logical that the California courts would rule similarly and uphold a clause that provided for disinheritance of a beneficiary who married outside of a particular faith.

Including a provision to disinherit a particular beneficiary because of religion, or on grounds of substance abuse or other conditions, is a tricky area of estate planning. You should consult an experienced estate planning lawyer if you want to create such provisions. At Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation, we can help you create an estate plan that will contain such provisions. Call us to schedule a complimentary consultation.

Published on: April 3, 2010

Why Wills & Trusts May be Found Invalid

by Scott C. Soady

There are many reasons why a will or a trust may be challenged and set aside as invalid. Here are some of the more common grounds to contest someone’s will or trust.

1. Coercion – If someone coerces the testator (the person creating the will or trust) to make changes in a will or a trust or forces them either physically or emotionally to do something that is not what they truly wish to do, the document can be challenged on the basis of coercion.

2. Duress – If someone exerts pressure upon he testator to change their will or trust or make dispositions they don’t want to do, the document could be held invalid on the basis of duress.

Published on: February 24, 2010

What Does it Mean to be a “Fiduciary”?

by Scott C. Soady

In the estate planning world we used the term “fiduciary” a lot. Trustees, administrators, executors, and agents under a power of attorney are all “fiduciaries”. What does that term mean?

A fiduciary is an individual who undertakes to act for and on behalf of another in a particular matter. A fiduciary has to perform his duties with the utmost of trust and honesty. A fiduciary is expected to be loyal to the person to whom he owes the duty (the “principal”). He must not put his personal interests before the principal and must not profit from his position as a fiduciary unless the principal consents.

The most common circumstances where a fiduciary is involved in estate planning is when a trustee administers a trust. The trustee is a fiduciary who must administer the trust estate for the benefit of the beneficiaries. If an individual dies with a will, the executor of the will is the fiduciary who administers the will and distributes the estate to the beneficiaries. An estate administered for someone without a will is called an administrator, also a fiduciary. All of these individuals have the duty to act with the utmost of loyalty and impartiality.

Published on: January 26, 2010

Uncertainty about the Estate Tax May Require Trust Review

by Scott C. Soady

For now, there is no estate tax in 2010. Everyone expected Congress to address the estate tax issue in 2009 but it did not happen. The House passed a bill that would have permanently kept the 2009 exemption but the Senate failed to vote on the estate tax issue leaving everyone wondering if they will respond during the next session. Without a law passed by Congress, the estate tax will re-appear in 2011 with a reduced exemption from 2009’s $3.5 million to $1 million.

If Congress does enact an estate tax law sometime in 2010, will it be retroactive to January 1, 2010? Would a retroactive law be constitutional? No doubt there will some decedent who dies between January 1, 2010 and the date of the law who has an estate subject to estate taxes. The heirs or beneficiaries of such an individual would certainly litigate the retroactivity issue.

The uncertainty may cause some people to consider review their existing plans to determine the effect of the repeal in 2010 and the effect of a much lower federal estate tax exemption in 2011. Particularly individuals who have taxable estates and bypass or exemption trusts should get a review of their current trust to see if the repeal would have unintended consequences should they pass away. Many trusts have language referring to the federal estate tax exemption to allocate assets among different beneficiaries. Depending on how the trusts are set up, the repeal of the estate tax entirely could have unintended results such as disinheriting a child from a previous marriage or disinheriting a spouse from a second marriage.

Published on: January 23, 2010

Can an Irrevocable Trust be Changed?

by Scott C. Soady

An irrevocable trust is one that usually cannot be revoked, modified or amended. Trusts can become irrevocable in several ways. Some are created to be irrevocable at the time they are created. An example of this type of irrevocable trust is a Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust (ILIT). This is a type of trust that is created to hold life insurance and pass the death benefit from such policies to the beneficiaries of the trust without incurring any income or estate taxes on the transfer. Such a trust cannot be revoked, changed, or amended after it is created except by court order.

Some trusts for married couples become irrevocable upon the death of the first spouse. A typical example is an A/B trust, sometimes called a Bypass Trust or Exemption Trust. With this type of trust, the Deceased Spouse’s Trust becomes irrevocable after the first death and cannot be changed, amended, or revoked.

Other trusts which can be irrevocable are certain types of charitable trusts and a Qualified Personal Residence Trust (QPRT)There are some instances however, where a trust which is irrevocable can be modified by court order. Civil Code Section 3399 permits a contract (which a trust is) to be reformed when the writing, through mistake or fraud, fails to express the intent of the parties. Reforming a trust might be appropriate when due to a drafting error or scrivener’s error, the intent of the individuals creating the trust has not been fulfilled.

Published on: December 22, 2009

Documentary about Wills amd Trusts to Air on TV

by Scott C. Soady

In the 1950’s there was a TV program called “The Millionaire” where an anonymous millionaire gave away a million dollars each week to people he never met. The money was conditioned on the donee not revealing how he got the money or how much he received. I guess no one thought about things like gift tax, gift returns, or the IRS. It was TV!

A new documentary about real life situations involving wills and trusts is filming now for airing on Discovery Investigation. It will chronicle true stories about will, trusts, and estates and how they affected the people who created the will or trust, beneficiaries, or those cut out of a will. The program will interview everyone involved and show both sides of the controversy.The program is appropriately called “The Will.”

At Law Office of Scott C. Soady, A Professional Corporation we know the importance of creating an estate plan. Without a will or a trust, the California Probate Court will determine who inherits your assets and will do so through probate administration. Maybe such a documentary as “The Will” will help viewers to understand the importance of wills and trusts and encourage people who do not have an estate plan to create one.