The “Important Opinions” that appear each week on the front page of Virginia Lawyers Weekly are those chosen by our editors as the most likely to impact law practice or a given subject area of law. Below is a listing, ...

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By Alexander A. Bove Jr. and Melissa Langa BridgeTower Media Newswires Before she died, one of your long-term clients appointed you as trustee of a family trust for the benefit of her three children, currently ages 18, 23 and 28. ...

Tagged with: Wills & Trusts

Although a short will offered for probate had no page numbers, separately initialed pages, or paragraphs running onto the next page, it also presented no evidence of fraud or alteration. Accordingly, it was properly probated as the decedent’s will. Background ...

Tagged with: Justice Stephen R. McCullough Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Even though the owner of a servient estate had granted it to himself as trustee of a living trust, his subsequent easement – granted and recorded in his individual capacity – operated as a partial revocation of the prior transfer ...

Tagged with: Fairfax County Circuit Court Judge David Bernhard Real Estate Real Property Virginia Circuit Courts Wills & Trusts

Although a will passed the testator’s residual estate to his surviving spouse, its substantial limitations on uses and transfer indicated that she inherited the residual assets as a life estate, not in fee simple. Background James E. Feeney III died ...

Tagged with: Justice William C. Mims Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Lured by the prospect of protecting his real estate from creditors, an elderly property owner’s sale of his land to a “holding entity” – which he was (wrongly) told would hold the property in trust – was not voidable on ...

Tagged with: Contract Per Curiam Opinion Real Estate Virginia Court of Appeals Wills & Trusts

An attorney-in-fact was not liable for his wife’s improper withdrawal from an account she shared with the decedent, but he was still liable to the decedent’s estate for money damages in the amount of funds he wrongfully deposited into his ...

Tagged with: Per Curiam Opinion Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

An argument by the testator’s son that she was competent to name him as her attorney-in-fact did not bar his later claim that she was not competent to execute her will only a few months later. Background In June 2012, ...

Tagged with: Justice William C. Mims Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

After a four-year marriage, decedent Declan Irving obtained a divorce that included a property settlement agreement. The agreement stated, in part, that “no children were born of the marriage.” Additionally, “the infant child known as Patrick D. Irving is not ...

Tagged with: Justice William C. Mims Supreme Court of Virginia Wills & Trusts

Midgett v. O’Brien (VLW No. 017-8-110, 9pp.) (Lannetti, J.) Norfolk Cir.Ct. Case No. CL17-4956. Holding: Where the plaintiff-son and defendant-daughter dispute the terms of their mother’s will regarding a provision allowing the son to purchase his sisters’ shares of a ...

Tagged with: Judge David W. Lannetti Norfolk Circuit Court Virginia Circuit Courts Wills & Trusts