Estates and Trusts Commons^™

Hb 409, A Drastic Departure From Florida’S Traditional Stance On Will Execution Formalities, Justin Shifrin

Journal of Technology Law & Policy

The baby boomer generation is aging, and many of the citizens that belong to this generation are retiring to Florida. Accordingly, Florida is expected to host one of the largest wealth transfers in history. And while the baby boomer population ages, our society is becoming more digitized. Things we traditionally did by pen and paper are now increasingly done by computer and keystroke, and wills are no exception. What was previously considered a document whose sacred nature could only be appreciated by the affixation of a handwritten signature at the bottom thereof, wills are now being drafted, signed, witnessed, and …

What Happened To Grandma’S House: The Real Property Implications Of Dying Intestate, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

Studies have shown that intergenerational wealth transmission significantly affects wealth concentration and the growing wealth gap. Of the two million households that received an inheritance or a substantial inter vivos gift each year, roughly half are small, under $50,000, while transfers of $1 million or more account for only 2% of the transfers. Yet, those 2% of inheritances over $1 million comprise 40% of total wealth transferred. As scholars continue to examine the role of inheritance in the alarming wealth gap, few are focusing on how the laws of intestacy might exacerbate the gap by leading to greater wealth loss …

Litigation Blues For Red-State Trusts: Judicial Construction Issues For Wills And Trusts, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

Will construction—the process wherein a trier of fact must determine the testator’s probable intent because the testator’s actual intent is not clear—is too little discussed and too often misunderstood in succession law jurisprudence. Yet, construction issues are becoming increasingly important due to a growing number of will and trust disputes concerning the determination of beneficiaries in a post-Obergefell United States. Currently, courts are being asked to construe terms like “spouse,” “husband,” “wife,” “child,” “son,” “daughter,” and “descendants” in estate planning documents during a time in which understandings of marriage, identity, reproduction, religious liberty, and public policy are rapidly evolving. Interestingly, …

Transfer On Death Deeds: It Is Time To Establish The Rules Of The Game, Stephanie Emrick

Florida Law Review

A transfer on death deed is a form of deed that allows real property assets to pass at death outside of the probate process. Through the twentieth century, there has been a movement in the world of property law—dubbed “the nonprobate revolution”—that focuses on using will substitutes to transfer personal property assets at death without the typical probate process. This is important because the probate process can be quite lengthy and expensive. Until recently, the nonprobate option was not readily available where real property assets were a part of the estate. The transfer on death deed essentially evolved from the …

Congress And Commercial Trusts: Dealing With Diversity Jurisdiction Post-Americold, S.I. Strong

Florida Law Review

Commercial trusts are one of the United States’ most important types of business organizations, holding trillions of dollars of assets and operating nationally and internationally as a “mirror image” of the corporation. However, commercial trusts remain underappreciated and undertheorized in comparison to corporations, often as a result of the popular but mistaken belief that commercial trusts are analogous to traditional intergenerational trusts or that corporations reflect the primary or paradigmatic form of business association. The treatment of commercial trusts reached its nadir in early 2016, when the U.S. Supreme Court held in Americold Realty Trust v. ConAgra Foods, Inc. that …

The Stranger-To-The-Marriage Doctrine: Judicial Construction Issues Post-Obergefell, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article tracks the evolution of inheritance law for adopted children and suggests that courts use construction approaches that worked in the context of a new understanding of the parent-child relationship as a guide to construing wills in the context of changing social and legal definitions of the martial relationship. In this regard, Part II offers a brief overview of pertinent construction doctrines. Next, Part III summarizes the history of inheritance law for adopted children. Finally, Part IV draws an analogy between the stranger-to-the-adoption doctrine and an approach to inheritance law for same-sex spouses that this Essay calls the "stranger-to-the-marriage" …

Disrupting The Wealth Gap Cycles: An Empirical Study Of Testacy And Wealth, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

In an empirical study of all decedents dying in 2013 in Alachua County, Florida whose estates were probated, either testate or intestate, the data show striking correlations between intestacy and lower wealth, and testacy and greater wealth. And the demographics of those who died intestate correspond to the demographics of those people at risk of falling into the cycle of wealth-dissipation. To explore the possible effects of intestacy and testacy on wealth and property succession, I analyzed 408 estates (293 testate and 115 intestate) across a variety of categories, including wealth, age, race, sex, and marital status. All of these …

Tearing Down The Wall: How Transfer-On-Death Real-Estate Deeds Challenge The Inter Vivos/Testamentary Divide, Danaya C. Wright, Stephanie Emrick

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article will examine one of the most recent will substitutes, the transfer-on-death (“TOD”) real-estate deed. Nearly half of the states have recognized, through common-law forms or legislation, a mechanism to allow for the transfer of real property on death without using a will, without following the will formalities, and without necessitating probate. This new tool in the estate planner’s toolbox is invaluable: revocable trusts have proven too expensive for decedents of modest means, and wills continue to require formalities that can easily frustrate non-lawyer-drafted estate documents. But the variety of TOD deed rules and mechanisms that the different states …

Commentary On Reid Kress Weisbord And David Horton, Boilerplate And Default Rules In Wills Law: An Empirical Analysis, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

Reid Weisbord and David Horton have undertaken an incredibly important empirical study in an area of law that suffers from a large gap in our understanding of how people actually choose to leave their property at their death and the drafting traps that can easily lead to litigation. The study is also important for illustrating how the lawyers we teach in Trusts and Estates need to be more careful in drafting the various documents to manifest their clients' testamentary intent. In particular, Weisbord and Horton studied 230 recently probated wills in Sussex County, New Jersey and discovered that the use …

Honoring Probable Intent In Intestacy: An Empirical Assessment Of The Default Rules And The Modern Family, Danaya C. Wright, Beth Sterner

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article provides preliminary analysis of an empirical study of nearly 500 wills probated in Alachua and Escambia Counties in the State of Florida in 2013. The particular focus of the study is to determine if there are noticeable patterns of property distribution preferences among decedents based on their diverse family relationships. Earlier empirical studies of distribution preferences indicated that a majority of married decedents wanted to give all or most of their estates to their surviving spouses. As a result of these studies, most states amended their probate codes to give surviving spouses a sizable percentage of a decedent …

Moving Forward By Looking Back: The Retroactive Application Of Obergefell, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

The recent Supreme Court decision of Obergefell v. Hodges has forever altered American jurisprudence. Not only did this decision make same-sex marriage legal in all fifty states, but it also required states to recognize same-sex marriages from other states in accordance with the 14th Amendment. The Court’s holding in Obergefell raises a fundamental question with serious legal and financial significance: when exactly do these once unrecognized marriages legally begin? And to what extent must courts apply Obergefell retroactively? The stakes are high and substantive financial effects are pending on the answer to this question — for, with marriage, comes wide-ranging …

The Will As An Implied Unilateral Arbitration Contract, E. Gary Spitko

Florida Law Review

A consensus has begun to develop in the case law, the academic commentary, and the statutory reform movement that a testator’s provision in her will mandating arbitration of any challenge to the will should not be enforceable against a beneficiary who has not agreed to the arbitration provision, at least where the will contestant, by his contest, seeks to increase his inheritance outside the will. Grounding this consensus is the widespread understanding that a will is not a contract. This Article seeks to challenge both the understanding that a will is not a contract and the opposition to enforcement of …

Trust Term Extension, Reid Kress Weisbord

Florida Law Review

Over the last thirty years, most jurisdictions in the United States have repealed or abrogated the Rule Against Perpetuities, which prohibits perpetual donor control over property. This, in turn, has led estate planning practitioners to consider whether a trust created to comply with the Rule could, after the Rule’s repeal, be extended in perpetuity to provide for future generations of the settlor’s descendants upon petition of the trustee. Trust term extension in this context implicates fundamental questions about the purpose of a trust: For whose benefit—the beneficiaries’, the settlor’s, or the trustee/fiduciary’s—does the trust exist? This Article argues that the …

Inheritance Equity: Reforming The Inheritance Penalties Facing Children In Non-Traditional Families, Danaya C. Wright

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article examines how more than 50% of children living today may be disadvantaged by 1950s era inheritance laws that privilege and protect only those children living in nuclear families with their biological parents. Because so many children today are living in blended families — single-parent families, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, or queer/questioning (LGBTQ) families, or are living with relatives — their right to inherit from the persons who function as their parents are severely limited by most state probate codes, even though they would likely be entitled to child support under the parent-child definitions of most of those states' …

Dispatches From The Trenches Of America's Great Gun Trust Wars, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

Without question, the national dialogue pertaining to the right to bear arms and the possible expansion of gun control regulations is shaping up to be one of the more heated political topics of the twenty-first century. At the moment, fervent participants on both sides of this ongoing debate have focused a spotlight on an estate planning instrument commonly referred to as a “gun trust.” Typically, estate planning products rarely cause the kind of nationally impassioned discussion as seen with gun trusts. So why have trusts, a commonly used estate planning tool, become entangled in this lively, and often vitriolic, national …

Illegitimate Harm: Law, Stigma, And Discrimination Against Nonmarital Children, Solangel Maldonado

Florida Law Review

No one would dispute that for most of U.S. history, nonmarital children suffered significant legal and societal discrimination. Although many individuals believe that the legal disadvantages attached to “illegitimate” status have disappeared in the last forty years, this Article demonstrates that the law continues to discriminate against nonmarital children in a number of areas, including intestate succession, citizenship, and child support. Societal biases against nonmarital children also remain. A majority of Americans believe that the increase in nonmarital births is a significant societal problem and almost 50% believe that unmarried women should not have children. Some courts are aware of …

Who Killed The Rule Against Perpetuities?, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

This article examines the relationship between the federal wealth transfer taxes and the rule against perpetuities. The decline of the RAP is often attributed primarily to the GST tax amendments enacted in 1986. However, while perpetual trusts were available long before 1986, their estate tax avoidance possibilities were not widely used. Even after 1986, simple repeal of the RAP leaves perpetual trusts exposed to potential estate taxation. In addition, settlors should consider non-tax considerations in assessing the attractions of perpetual trusts.

Interpreting I.R.C. § 67(E): The Supreme Court's Attempt To Nail Investment Advisory Fees To The "Floor", Lindsay Roshkind

Florida Law Review

No abstract provided.

A Malthusian Analysis Of The So-Called Dynasty Trust, William J. Turnier, Jeffrey L. Harrison

UF Law Faculty Publications

Select financial institutions and members of the Bar have seized upon the presence of the limited exemption from the generation skipping transfer tax provided under the Internal Revenue Code to promote so-called dynasty trusts as a means whereby individuals can build dynastic wealth for a family forever free from transfer taxes. To realize such benefits, state law that does not impose the Rule Against Perpetuities must govern the trust. The promise of dynastic wealth is unlikely to be realized due to several factors. Administrative and tax costs are likely to reduce the yield on such trusts to a level where …

Sperms And Estates: An Unadulterated Functionally Based Approach To Parent-Child Property Succession, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Article argues that the sanguinary nexus test, the dominant standard for determining whether an individual has a right to inherit property when another dies, has become an increasingly frustrating, and arguably arcane, legal tool in light of the diversity of family relationships extant in modern American life. The sanguinary nexus test determines child status based upon ties of “blood.” Considering the evolving notions of family structures and advances in reproductive technologies involving cloning, surrogacy and egg/sperm donation, serious questions arise about whether the existing sanguinary nexus test can produce results consistent with the fundamental principle of testamentary freedom underlying …

A Comment On Unification, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article discusses recent proposals aimed at unifying the law of wills and nonprobate transfers. The author notes that default rules of construction present the strongest case for unification, but contends that distinctions between wills and nonprobate transfers remain important in the areas of formalities and restrictions affecting third-party rights. The author concludes that the policy goal should be to allow wills and nonprobate transfers to operate smoothly as complementary methods of deathtime wealth transmission.

Probate Law Reform And Nonprobate Transfers, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The advent of widespread, large-scale probate avoidance has added a new dimension to the project of probate law reform. When the Uniform Probate Code made its debut in 1969, its primary goal was to modernize traditional probate procedures and make them more uniform, flexible, and efficient. The Code's reforms were in part a response to the rise of will substitutes which offered a ready means of transferring property at death outside the probate system. In the intervening years, however, will substitutes have continued to proliferate, while traditional probate procedures have resisted comprehensive reform. The probate system has not become obsolete …

Liberating Estates Law From The Constraints Of Copyright, Lee-Ford Tritt

UF Law Faculty Publications

This Article addresses a disturbing statutory phenomenon of enormous importance to any artist, composer, writer, scholar, scientist or innovator. The phenomenon, which I have termed “estate-bumping,” has driven an unintended wedge between copyright law and estates law by effectively preventing authors of copyrights from disposing of their copyright interests through common estate planning mechanisms. Current copyright law imposes a unique restraint on the testamentary freedom of copyright authors, a restraint not imposed on any other type of property owner. In effect, this restraint enables unintended beneficiaries to rewrite, or “bump”, an author’s estate plan. Thus, it is copyright law – …

Family Limited Partnerships: Discounts, Options, And Disappearing Value, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

Family partnerships have been become increasingly popular as a means of avoiding estate and gift taxes. As other estate freezing techniques have been closed off by statutory anti-abuse rules, estate planners have increasingly resorted to partnerships as a vehicle for transferring assets within a family at deeply discounted values. Discounts ranging from one-third to over one-half of the value of the underlying assets are routinely claimed, and often allowed, based on lack of marketability and lack of control, even where these disabilities have no lasting or ascertainable economic effect. Nevertheless, the use of family partnerships to suppress value for transfer …

Estate Tax Repeal: Through The Looking Glass, Karen C. Burke, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

The Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001 promises dramatic reductions in income and estate taxes over a nine-year phase-in period, culminating in 2010 with complete repeal of the estate tax and introduction of a new carryover basis regime for inherited property. The Act's sunset provision automatically terminates these substantive changes at the end of 2010 and reinstates prior law for 2011 and subsequent years. In effect, the sunset provision transforms the large-scale tax cuts into a temporary measure and leaves open the question of whether to make those cuts permanent. Since the Act was signed into law, …

Transfer Of Property By Inheritance And Bequest In Biblical Law And Tradition, Richard H. Hiers

UF Law Faculty Publications

In what follows, we first review briefly the kinds of property subject to transfer by inheritance or bequest. Next, we examine texts pertaining to intestate succession - that is, transfer of property by operation of law upon the death of the property holder without explicit provision by will or bequest as to who will inherit or take afterwards. As a summary expression, such transfers will be designated as "inheritance." In this context, we note the relevance of certain provisions regarding levirate marriage and the Year of Jubilee. We also consider the problematic nature of the so-called birthright practice in this …

Will Substitutes Under The Revised Uniform Probate Code, Grayson M.P. Mccouch

UF Law Faculty Publications

Recent years have witnessed a dramatic increase in probate avoidance. Revocable trusts, joint-and-survivor or pay-on-death (“POD”) bank accounts, transfer-on-death (“TOD”) security registrations and other will substitutes have proliferated and emerged as successful competitors of the probate system. In response to this “nonprobate revolution,” the drafters of the Uniform Probate Code (“UPC”) have begun to reconsider the scope and direction of probate reform. The 1989 and 1990 UPC revisions reflect a new emphasis on integrating the law of probate and nonprobate transfers.

Nevertheless, the nonprobate revolution remains incomplete. Although the revised UPC establishes uniform constructional rules for wills and will substitutes, …