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 ...

Tagged with: Elder Law 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 ...

Tagged with: Judge Mary Jane Hall Norfolk 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 ...

Tagged with: Judge Thomas D. Horne Rappahannock County Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts 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 ...

Tagged with: Judge James P. Jones U.S. District Court - Western District Wills & Trusts

The Virginia State Bar Legal Ethics Committee has withdrawn two 1990 legal ethics opinions out of concern they might lead lawyers astray in matters involving powers of attorney. The two opinions – LEO 1313 and 1339 – take the view ...

Tagged with: Bar Associations Ethics Virginia State Bar 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 ...

Tagged with: 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

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, ...

Tagged with: Justice Cleo E. Powell Supreme Court of Virginia 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 ...

Tagged with: Judge Louis Allen Sherman Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts 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, ...

Tagged with: Justice Cynthia D. Kinser Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Lawyers setting up trusts for clients are forging a new role for an advisor charged with seeing that the client’s original intent is carried out: trust protector. Broadly speaking, the trust protector does not have a day-to-day role in managing ...

Tagged with: Wills & Trusts