Estates and Trusts Commons^™

Wills, Trusts, Guardianships, And Fiduciary Administration, Mary F. Radford

Mercer Law Review

This Article discusses significant cases decided by the Georgia Court of Appeals during the period of June 1, 2021 through May 31, 2022, and significant Georgia legislation enacted in that same period relating to Georgia probate and trust law, guardianship, and estate planning.

Pop & Perjury: The Irs Valuation War With The Estate Of Michael Jackson

The University of New Hampshire Law Review

When Michael Jackson died unexpectedly in Los Angeles, California, on June 25, 2009, his career and earnings were nearing an all-time low. Plagued by past sexual abuse allegations, scandals, and questionable health, Michael Jackson’s personal finances were purported to be in complete disarray. However, following his unexpected death, the value of his estate, which was reported to be near to nothing, swelled as the world remembered his beloved contributions to the world and began to purchase accordingly. Sales of Michael Jackson’s music began to soar high. The estate’s value soared even higher as it signed licensing agreements and released new …

A New Feudalism: Selfish Genes, Great Wealth, And The Rise Of The Dynastic Family Trust (Dft), Eric Kades

Faculty Publications

Today’s record levels of economic inequality are infecting our future as the top 0.01% bequeath vast wealth to their descendants. With the death of the Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP), this inequality has the potential to harden social class lines—not just for a generation or two, but forever. Although it may sound implausible, interviews with estate lawyers serving very high-net-worth clients reveal that some members of the wealthiest tier of testators are already exploiting the RAP’s elimination, along with a tax loophole, to establish dynasty trusts that will financially empower their bloodline as long as it continues. Recent work in evolutionary …

Estate Planning With Electronic And Regulated Assets, Thomas Simmons, Deborah Tedford, Jared Cloud, Shaheen Inami, Shari Levitan

Faculty Publications

Unique or unusual assets – from non-fungible tokens to firearms – pose novel challenges to estate planners and fiduciaries – particularly when it comes to administration of the estate. The need to both carry out the donor’s wishes and maintain the value for beneficiaries can come with different considerations from the more “garden variety” asset – particularly if the estate planner and/or fiduciary is not aware of their existence. In this webcast, our faculty of experienced estate planners – all Fellows of ACTEC – will explore different types of electronic and regulated assets and the issues you must take into …

The Current State Of Estates, Cardozo Trusts And Estates Law Society

2022–2023 Flyers

No abstract provided.

Charity Oparaocha V Winfrida Murambiwa (2004) Z.R. 141 (S.C.), Milambo Chibbonta-Pupwe

SAIPAR Case Review

No abstract provided.

Wills, Trusts, And Estates, Hunter M. Glenn, Allison A. Tait

University of Richmond Law Review

Between legislative and judicial activity, there have been a number of noteworthy developments and changes to the rules governing trusts and estates. Several of these developments turn on questions related to the role of fiduciaries, what responsibilities they have with respect to reporting as well as asset management, and when they can be removed. These questions concerning fiduciaries implicitly address the rights of beneficiaries and the protections available to them. New developments also will have multiple repercussions for estate planners and wealth managers. New planning strategies in response to changes in the law of undue influence may become important to …

Keeping Current - Probate [Notes], Claire Hargrove, Paula Moore, Kerri G. Nipp, William P. Lapiana, Jake W. Villanueva

Articles & Chapters

No abstract provided.

Generalized Creditors And Particularized Creditors: Against A Unified Theory Of Standing In Bankruptcy, David G. Carlson, Jeanne L. Schroeder

Articles

Courts have struggled toward a unified theory to explain when the trustee has exclusive jurisdiction to sue a third party for harms done to a bankrupt debtor, and when creditors have exclusive jurisdiction to sue the third party. Courts have proclaimed that when every creditor can sue the third party, then none of them can, and the right belongs solely to the trustee. Creditor rights are “generalized.” If only a proper subset of creditors can sue the third party, then the trustee is not able to subrogate to the subset. Such creditors are “particularized.” This paper proclaims the test a …

The Debate Surrounding The Company Purpose In The Post-Pandemic Age, Leon Anidjar

Cardozo International & Comparative Law Review

The recent COVID-19 pandemic crisis produced many creative responses to confront its adverse results. Many companies worldwide were required to adopt innovative thinking by altering their business activities and revising their entire supply chain by attracting different types of resources delivered by various stakeholders. This Article explores the implications of this fundamental change on central theoretical assumptions of corporate governance. It articulates a new stakeholders-resources theory that explores governance norms as part of the firm's quest for inputs required to generate a competitive advantage. It applies this analytical framework in the debate on corporate purpose. This Article argues that companies …

Holding Residential Property On Inter Vivos Trusts In Singapore: Transfers Of Equity Interests, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Following amendments to the ACD regime in Singapore, transferring equity interests to and from a trust with no beneficial owners will attract ACD, as will the exercise of a power of appointment by a trustee to grant equity interests to a beneficiary. Renunciation of interests in a bare trust will also attract ACD. Together with the introduction of ABSD (Trust), it is now impractical to use trusts to hold residential properties for succession planning purposes. Remaining options are to gift the properties without any strings attached or bequeath the properties in a will and risk subsequent changes to death taxation.

Holding Residential Property On Inter Vivos Trusts In Singapore: Transfers Of Interests, Vincent Ooi

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

As a response to the “missing beneficial owner” problem highlighted by the Zhao Hui Fang case, amendments have been made to Singapore’s stamp duty regime. ABSD will now be levied at 35% on transfers of residential property to trustees, with a remission available if certain conditions are met. These conditions effectively mean that residential property held on inter vivos trusts in Singapore must be given to beneficiaries without conditions or powers of revocation or variation. This has major ramifications for succession planning, since such restrictions largely defeat the purpose of using a trust to hold property in the first place.

The Wills Of Covid-19: The Technological Push For Change In New York Trusts And Estates Law, Olivia Visconti

St. John's Law Review

(Excerpt)

Sirens filled the crisp, cool air of early March 2020 as COVID- 19 overtook the United States. New York City, once a metropolis of busy human interaction, became an epicenter of isolation, anxiety, and fear as the pandemic swept across the city and state of New York. While quarantining at home, New Yorkers addressed their to-do lists: they cleaned out cluttered rooms and finally fixed leaky sinks and drafty windows. Many New Yorkers also worried about the ever-present threat of falling ill; so they decided to execute their wills. Should something happen to them, they wanted to ensure their …

Civil Rights Catch-22s, Jonathan P. Feingold

Cardozo Law Review

Civil rights advocates have long viewed litigation as a vital path to social change. In many ways, it is. But in key respects that remain underexplored in legal scholarship, even successful litigation can hinder remedial projects. This perverse effect stems from civil rights doctrines that incentivize litigants (or their attorneys) to foreground community plight—such as academic underachievement or overincarceration. Rational plaintiffs, responding in kind, deploy legal narratives that tend to track racial stereotypes and regressive theories of inequality. When this occurs, even successful lawsuits can harden the structural and behavioral forces that produce and perpetuate racial inequality.

I refer to …

Intellectual Heirs Property: Why Certain Musical Copyrights Should Be Included In The Heirs Property Reform Movement, Austin Weatherly

Journal of Intellectual Property Law

The modern heirs property reform movement seeks to ameliorate the issues caused by the procedures governing the inheritance of real property from landowners who die intestate. This procedure can have a negative impact on heirs and the value of their inherited property. The reform movement, as it stands, only seeks to resolve the issues created by these procedures in the real property context. The rhetorical basis for the modern heirs property reform movement largely focuses on closing the racial wealth gap in the United States and slowing the wealth bleed from one black generation to the next. Many of the …

The Future Of Testamentary Capacity, Reid Kress Weisbord, David Horton

Washington and Lee Law Review

Recently, the #FreeBritney saga cast a harsh spotlight on state guardianship systems. Yet despite their serious flaws, guardianship regimes have benefited from waves of reform. Indeed, since the 1970s, most jurisdictions have taken steps to protect the autonomy of people with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities (CIDD). Likewise, lawmakers are currently experimenting with supported decision-making (SDM): an alternative to guardianship designed to help individuals with CIDD make their own choices. These changes are no panacea, but they have modernized a field that once summarily denied “idiots” and “lunatics” power over their affairs.

However, in a related context, the legal system’s …

Tax Crushing Trusts, Thomas Simmons

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

How Should Inheritance Law Remediate Inequality?, Felix B. Chang

Washington Law Review

This Article argues that trusts and estates (“T&E”) should prioritize intergenerational economic mobility—the ability of children to move beyond the economic stations of their parents—above all other goals. The field’s traditional emphasis on testamentary freedom, or the freedom to distribute property in a will as one sees fit, fosters the stickiness of inequality. For wealthy settlors, dynasty trusts sequester assets from the nation’s system of taxation and stream of commerce. For low-income decedents, intestacy (i.e., the system of property distribution for a person who dies without a will) splinters property rights and inhibits their transfer, especially to nontraditional heirs.

Holistically, …

A Trap For The Unwary: Enforcing Writs Of Seizure And Sale Against Joint Tenancies, Hang Wu Tang

Research Collection Yong Pung How School Of Law

Joint tenancies are a common method of holding properties in Singapore, and yet, the issue in relation to enforcing writs of seizure and sale against a judgment debtor who owns a property on a joint tenancy with another is fraught with great legal and procedural uncertainty. This paper seeks to cut through the thicket of confusion by unpacking the various legal and procedural difficulties surrounding enforcing a judgment via a writ of seizure and sale against a judgment debtor who owns property as a joint tenant with another. Specifically, this article seeks to offer solutions to the practical difficulties of …

Federally Mandated Online Sales Tax: A Logistical Solution For The Future Of E-Commerce, Daniel O'Connor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Economic Structural Transformation And Litigation: Evidence From Chinese Provinces, To Economic Change And Restructuring, Doug Bujakowski, Joan Schmit

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

The "Business Interruption" Insurance Coverage Conundrum: Covid-19 Presents A Challenge, Paul E. Traynor

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Misalighned Incentives In Markets: Envisioning Finance That Benefits All Of Society, Dr. Ryan Clements

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Most People, Most Of The Time (Reviewing Mary Louise Fellows & E. Gary Spitko, How Should Non-Probate Transfers Matter In Intestacy?, 53 U.C. Davis L. Rev. 2207 (2020)), Katheleen Guzman

Other Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Monsanto: Creator Of Cancer Liability

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Impact Of Corporate Response To Controversial Presidential Statements Or Policies

DePaul Business & Commercial Law Journal

No abstract provided.

Worshiping At The Feet Of Wealth: Self-Settled Asset Protection Trusts And Their Public Policy Implications, Kelsey Massey

The Journal of Business, Entrepreneurship & the Law

The primary concern of this note is summarizing the public policy concerns concerning Domestic Self-Settled Asset Protection Trusts (DAPT) debated by scholars in a concise way and critiquing them. Secondly, this note seeks to compile various alternative structures suggested by scholars. Part I will explain the basic nature of spendthrift trusts and explain the history leading to the current DAPT structure. Part II will briefly explore the differences between Offshore Self-Settled Asset Protection Trusts (OAPTs) and DAPTs. Part III provides an overview of the relevant policy arguments for and against DAPT statutes and an analysis of their relative persuasiveness. Part …

How Should Inheritance Law Remediate Inequality?, Felix B. Chang

Faculty Articles and Other Publications

This Essay argues that trusts and estates (“T&E”) should prioritize intergenerational economic mobility—the ability of children to move beyond the economic station of their parents—above all other goals. The field’s traditional emphasis on testamentary freedom fosters the stickiness of inequality. For wealthy settlors, dynasty trusts sequester assets from the nation’s system of taxation and stream of commerce. For low-income decedents, intestacy splinters property rights and inhibits their transfer, especially to nontraditional heirs.

Holistically, this Essay argues that T&E should promote mean regression of the wealth distribution curve over time. This can be accomplished by loosening spending in ultrawealthy households and …

A New Feudalism: Selfish Genes, Great Wealth, And The Rise Of The Dynastic Family Trust (Dft), Eric Kades

Connecticut Law Review

Today’s record levels of economic inequality are infecting our future as the top 0.01% bequeath vast wealth to their descendants. With the death of the Rule Against Perpetuities (RAP), this inequality has the potential to harden social class lines—not just for a generation or two, but forever. Although it may sound implausible, interviews with estate lawyers serving very high-net-worth clients reveal that some members of the wealthiest tier of testators are already exploiting the RAP’s elimination, along with a tax loophole, to establish dynasty trusts that will financially empower their bloodline as long as it continues. Recent work in evolutionary …

Post-Pandemic Estate Planning: Analyzing The Recent Changes In Remote Notarization Laws, Matthew Fiedler

Seattle University Law Review

This Note explores estate planning in the post-pandemic landscape. Part I of this Note discusses how the resistance to remote technology in estate planning is rooted in traditional notions of formalism. Part II introduces a discussion regarding the use of remote technology, including its benefits and drawbacks. Part III articulates the current legal requirements to validly notarize signatures on various estate planning documents in Washington state. This part also discusses the extent of electronic or remote notarization allowed in the wake of emergency orders issued by Washington State Governor Jay Inslee in response to the spread of COVID-19. Additionally, Part …