People may believe estate planning should be a once-and-done affair. But things tend to change over time, and estate plans may need to change, too. Even plans that say they are irrevocable are never totally irrevocable. Change is the norm these days. The just-passed SECURE Act brought a slew of changes and new strategies to…
Circumstances change. Trusts often are not adaptable to those changes. Sometimes trusts run for many years, or even decades. Increasingly, lawyers and trustees turn to trust decanting as a means of updating older trust language. What is trust decanting? Decanting is a relatively recent idea in trust administration. In some circumstances, a trustee may be…
VOLUME 24 NUMBER 18 When a trustee transfers assets to a new trust with the same beneficiaries (but different terms), it is often called decanting. “Decant” is an analogy: the trustee is, in a sense, pouring trust assets from an old vessel into a new container, and improving the quality of the trust in the…
OCTOBER 10, 2016 VOLUME 23 NUMBER 38 Let’s say that your mother wants to leave an inheritance for your son (let’s call him Daniel), but that Daniel is a minor. How can she arrange his inheritance? By putting it in trust, of course. Pretty commonly, Daniel’s trust might continue until he is 21, or 25,…
JANUARY 11, 2016 VOLUME 23 NUMBER 2 Jane Murray (not her real name) died in 2003. She had created a number of trusts, including two for the benefit of her daughter Dana. Jane was very worried about Dana’s future, partly because of a long history of drug and alcohol abuse. She included some strong language…
JUNE 29, 2015 VOLUME 22 NUMBER 24 Clients are often unfamiliar with the concept of a “power of appointment.” If they don’t know what it is, they can be excused for not knowing whether they have one, or how to use it. Suppose Thomas leaves $10,000 to charities in his trust, but gives his brother Richard…
NOVEMBER 3, 2014 VOLUME 21 NUMBER 40 We first wrote about trust “decanting” in this space three years ago. Since then we’ve had occasion to revisit the topic a handful of times — most recently about six weeks ago when we wrote about modifying trusts that no longer seemed to make as much sense, since…
SEPTEMBER 29, 2014 VOLUME 21 NUMBER 35 A lot has changed in American estate planning in the last decade (as you may have already heard). Estate tax thresholds have increased to (as of 2014) $5.34 million. On top of that figure, there is a relatively new concept of “portability” of the estate tax exemption, so…
JANUARY 9, 2012 VOLUME 19 NUMBER 2 With the increased emphasis on (and use of) living trusts for estate planning, we lawyers are seeing more and more cases in which an old trust needs modification. Perhaps the tax laws have changed since a parent or grandparent died. Maybe what once made sense is less defensible…
JUNE 20, 2011 VOLUME 18 NUMBER 22 Imagine this tragic scenario: your 33-year-old son has a serious illness, and requires extensive medical treatment. The good news is that the treatment may well effect a cure. The bad news is that it will be horribly expensive. Right now he qualifies for government assistance with that expense…