California Appeals Case: Executor seeks to set aside real estate transfer to revocable trust

Did your relative have a contradictory estate plan? Often times a person will  leave property in his or her will and also set up trusts towards the end of life. What happens when the will leaves the property to you but it was transferred to a real estate trust first? Can you set aside that transfer? That is what one appellant tried to do in this recent case out of the Court of Appeals in California.

Real Estate Trusts

• Trusts are non-probate property do you know what that means?
• While probate property is handled through your Last Will and Testament non-probate property usually has a pre-set beneficiary.
• Other non-probate property includes life insurance, other trusts, and POD accounts.
• If you take your real estate and put it into a trust then the probate court is going to ignore the will’s instructions on that property.
• Now the trust’s documents control the property!
• If this happens then the only way to get the property back into the estate is voiding the transfer.
• These transfers may be set aside for fraud, undue influence or duress.
• Experienced Palm Beach probate litigators use the facts and the evidence to prove that a transfer was not proper.
• Are you prepared to set aside a transfer of real estate in West Palm Beach?

Estate of Hessler

• This was an appeal from the Third District Court in California after the trial court upheld a transfer of property to a decedent’s revocable trust during his lifetime.
• On appeal the executor of the will claimed that the transfer was improper because the party lacked capacity to execute a quitclaim deed.
• The testator was in a non-verbal physical condition and the executor brought evidence from attending physicians.
• The executor also noted the cognitive dissonance in two testamentary documents.
• While the will bequeathed the property to someone, a trust had also been given the property through the previously mentioned quitclaim deed.
• On appeal unfortunately the executor could not meet her evidentiary burden and the transfer was upheld.

Want to learn more about fighting a possible fraudulent transfer of real estate in West Palm Beach?

Check out this entire case by clicking here.