In the too-good-to-be-true department of estate planning, it is sometimes possible to take a loan from a family trust or other entity controlled by the decedent and family members to pay estate tax and deduct the interest on the estate tax return. Such loans are very useful when the estate or trust needs liquid assets and money [...]
Filed under: Business, Estate Planning, Legal Topics | Tagged: Estate Planning, estate tax, Graegin loans, revocable trusts | Comments Off
If the trustee of a revocable trust lets the trust’s settlor make an extravagant purchase or risky investment can he or she get into trouble with the trust beneficiaries later? This issue was explored in a recent California case and the court’s answer would allow trustees to approve the settlor’s luxury beach getaway with impunity.
Filed under: Elder Law, Estate Planning, Legal Topics | Tagged: beneficiaries, competency, duties, recovable trusts, settlor, trust administration, trustee | Comments Off
What is the test of whether a person is a putative spouse? Is it based on whether the person actually believed in “good faith” that the marriage is valid, or does he or she need to have an “objectively reasonable” belief in the validity of the marriage? The California Supreme Court is set to answer this question in Ceja v Rudolph [...]
Filed under: Estate Planning, Family Law, Legal Topics | Tagged: invalid marriage, putative spouse | Comments Off
The late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs was known to be a very private person, and it appears that he has taken steps to preserve his privacy even in death. As do many entertainers and wealthy people, it appears that Jobs took advantage of California revocable trusts to prevent the publicity involved in probate.
Filed under: Elder Law, Estate Planning, Legal Topics, Real property | Tagged: death, drafting recovable trust, estate, privacy, probate, property, revocable trust, Steve Jobs, trust | Comments Off
Question: You file a breach of contract suit and begin negotiating with the defendant. You agree on a settlement, but the defendant dies before actually signing the settlement agreement. The defendant’s beneficiaries won’t be opening a probate, because there is less than $100k in assets. Under California law, what do you do?
Filed under: Business, Civil Litigation, Estate Planning, Legal Topics | Tagged: breach of contract, decedent's estate, litigant's death, probate | Comments Off
Remember the rule against perpetuities from law school? Although the rule against perpetuities is often associated with famous old English cases, it is actually a modern problem. As reported by the ABA Journal, the rule recently played out when the heirs of a ”cantankerous Michigan lumber baron” finally reached the end of a $100 million waiting [...]
Filed under: Elder Law, Estate Planning, Legal Topics | Tagged: estate tax, generation skipping transfer, rule against perpetuities, trusts, wills | Comments Off
It isn’t often that a court is reversed twice by the U.S. Supreme Court in the same case and still had the right result. But in effect, that’s what happened to the Ninth Circuit in the Anna Nicole Smith case.
Filed under: Bankruptcy, Civil Litigation, Estate Planning, Legal Topics | Tagged: Anna Nicole Smith, bankrutpcy, inheritance, judgment, Supreme Court, will | Comments Off
In the bad old days, taxes were assessed by individual tax collectors with the power to seize property. The only good part was that jury trials were available at common law in actions against tax collectors to recover illegally collected taxes. But once federal tax collectors started transferring tax receipts to the U.S. treasury, and [...]
Filed under: Business, Estate Planning, Legal Topics, New Legal Developments | Tagged: court trial, income tax, Jury trial, tax refund actions | 2 Comments »
