Take-Away: In the past we have reviewed the importance of identifying the settlor’s intent behind the creation of a trust. This focus is manifested in the Michigan Trust Code’s periodic reference to preserving a trust’s material purposes in trust modification or termination proceedings. However, the Michigan Trust Code and the Uniform Trust Code also have […]

Take-Away: In 2018 Michigan adopted a statute that authorizes electronic and remote notarizations of legal documents. However, not all states have such statutes. In light of the multiple nationwide ‘stay at home’ orders, there is now a Bill pending in the U.S. Senate that would authorize electronic and remote notarizations throughout the country in order […]

Take-Away: More guidance was published by the federal government on April 8 in the form of additional questions and answers with regard to the Payroll Protection Program (PPP.)A few of the 20 proposed answers to questions tend to help clarify some earlier confusion in the implementation of the PPP. Source: https://tinyurl.com/yxxn5g6b Background: Under the PPP excluded […]

Take-Away: Many existing IRA beneficiary designation forms and see-through trusts will have to be revised in light of the SECURE Act’s 10-year distribution rule, and the special category that it creates for eligible designated beneficiaries who may continue to take stretch distributions from inherited IRAs and qualified plan accounts using their life expectancy. Example: I fielded […]

This is Part II of the promised summary with regard to when to name a Trust as the beneficiary of retirement plan accounts and IRAs. Earlier I provided a summary of a conduit trust. This is a summary of the see-through trust known as an accumulation trust. I will not repeat the earlier summary of […]

Several weeks ago a couple of individuals indicated  that they wanted to know more about distributions from retirement plans and IRAs to Trusts. Perhaps because it is that time of the year when many of our thoughts turn to taking required minimum distributions before the end of the calendar year or  because Congress is now […]

The Legislative Development and Drafting Committee of the Michigan Probate and Estate Planning Council is currently looking at a possible amendment to the Michigan Trust Code to permit ‘silent trusts’ or what I call a ‘hush trust.’ Many clients would prefer to not have the beneficiaries of Trusts that they create know about the Trust […]

We regularly work with high net worth clients. Perhaps some of those clients own aircraft. I read an article last night that alerted me to some technical requirements that a trustee must deal with when an aircraft is titled in a Trust. If a client transfers title to the aircraft to an existing Trust, or […]

Last month the Michigan Court of Appeals published a decision that came as something of a surprise, at least to an old-timer like me. Because the Court’s decision is published  it carries precedential weight and it must be followed by all probate courts in Michigan. The facts are pretty straightforward. The testator had a longstanding […]

A few months back I wrote a summary about an infamous New Jersey divorce case that was getting a lot of publicity, Phanenstihl where the divorce court ordered the trustee of a third-party support trust to pay to the beneficiary’s soon-to-be ex-wife 50% of the value of the trust corpus, in spite of the presence […]