New ‘trust protector’ role is emerging in state

Rare land trust at heart of court battle

By Correy E. Stephenson
Published: June 6, 2013
Tags: Alexandria Circuit Court, Million-Dollar Defense Verdicts, Real Estate, Wills & Trusts

During Prohibition, a land trust made perfect sense. The unusual form of property ownership allows one or more owners to place their property in trust, with a trustee managing day-to-day operations. The twist: The true owners, whose identity remains confidential, actually retain the power to direct the trustee, manage the property and draw income from [...]

Trusts in Medicaid and asset protection planning

By Virginia Lawyers Weekly
Published: February 19, 2013
Tags: Elder Law, Wills & Trusts

The revocable living trust is a very useful and popular estate planning tool, recommended by most estate planning attorneys across the U.S. and used as the central estate planning document by millions of Americans. The primary benefit of the revocable living trust is that assets properly funded into such a trust are protected from the [...]

New Guardian Can Change Beneficiary

By Deborah Elkins
Published: December 19, 2012
Tags: Judge Mary Jane Hall, Norfolk Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts, Wills & Trusts

In this suit involving competing claims to life insurance proceeds, a Norfolk Circuit Court holds that decedent’s widow, who was replaced by decedent’s daughter as his guardian and conservator, could be removed by the daughter as a beneficiary on decedent’s life insurance benefits, a change he requested when the daughter assisted him in processing his [...]

Codicil Language Gives Widow Property

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 20, 2012
Tags: Judge Thomas D. Horne, Rappahannock County Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts, Wills & Trusts

A Rappahannock County Circuit Court grants a widow’s motion for partial summary judgment recognizing her right to all testator husband’s personal property and real estate “currently” in the testator’s name, interpreted as property owned at the time of the testator’s death. The relevant provisions of the Codicil paragraph 3 state the testator gives to his [...]

Ex-Wife Won’t Be Joined for IRA Claim

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 20, 2012
Tags: Judge James P. Jones, U.S. District Court - Western District, Wills & Trusts

In this dispute over ownership of decedent’s individual retirement account, the Abingdon U.S. District Court denies the IRA custodian’s motion to join decedent’s ex-wife as a necessary party by making her an involuntary plaintiff. Although decedent and the ex-wife divorced in 2005 before he died intestate in 2011, the ex-wife still is named as beneficiary [...]

Getting to the jury on ‘capacity’ for will

By Peter Vieth
Published: November 14, 2012
Tags: Alexandria Circuit Court, Justice Cleo E. Powell, Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Justice Donald W. Lemons, Justice Elizabeth A. McClanahan, Justice LeRoy F. Millette Jr., Justice S. Bernard Goodwyn, Justice William C. Mims, Supreme Court of Virginia News, Wills & Trusts

Call it a finger on the scale of justice. The law sometimes gives an advantage to one side in a lawsuit, allowing a legal “presumption” about some key fact in the case. Presumptions can be overcome, but how much weight it takes, who gets to make the call, and what happens afterward have been open [...]

Rebutted Presumption Does Not ‘Disappear’

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 6, 2012
Tags: Justice Cleo E. Powell, Supreme Court of Virginia, Wills & Trusts

In this challenge to the testamentary capacity of a woman who left most of her estate to three charities, by a cousin whose share under the later will was reduced to the testator’s dog and a fund for its care, a trial court did not err in instructing the jury on the presumption of testamentary [...]

Reduced Share for Beneficiary Interference

By Deborah Elkins
Published: November 5, 2012
Tags: Judge Louis Allen Sherman, Norfolk Circuit Court, Virginia Circuit Courts, Wills & Trusts

The Norfolk Circuit Court upholds a commissioner’s finding that a beneficiary’s distribution from an estate will be reduced because of her substantial interference with efficient administration of the estate. Cleo Eppes died on March 18, 2007, and left two surviving children, James Eppes and Mary Martin, and two grandchildren, Bryan and Gregory Eppes (the ‘Brothers’), [...]

Husband’s Elective Share Increased

By Deborah Elkins
Published: September 24, 2012
Tags: Justice Cynthia D. Kinser, Supreme Court of Virginia, Wills & Trusts

In a son’s action to determine father’s elective share under Va. Code § 64.1-16.2(D), the Supreme Court of Virginia reverses the circuit court decision excluding from wife’s augmented estate $41,750 in funds husband gave her that she gave to son, and charging husband with more than half of a joint debt of $50,000 used in [...]