Do you think your attorney’s wife should inherit your whole estate? What if you are a family member or an heir? What if you learned that your aunt left all her money, her CDs, her checking account, her mutual funds, and her IRAs, to ………… the wife of her estate planning attorney? Here is a very recent case out of the Midwest, just decided within the last few weeks.
Many Florida residents, or Florida citizens, create a revocable trust, also called a Florida living trust as a part of their estate plan. This is a trust which you create and control, which will manage the assets which you place in the trust during your lifetime and which will also dispose of your wealth upon your death. Typically, a person who creates a revocable trust will also serve as the trust’s sole trustee during life and as long as you are still able to serve in that role. You may or may not have co-trustees who serve along with you as trustee. When you no longer are able or willing to serve as trustee of your Florida revocable trust, successor trustees will take over for you.
A very recent case out of the Midwest, decided literally days ago, demonstrates a typical battle in the inheritance war, pitting a surviving wife, or widow, against the three daughters of the deceased resident who created a multi-million-dollar trust.
The Pankauski Law Firm PLLC successfully removed a Florida trustee from continuing to serve as trustee of a Florida trust. The West Palm Beach law firm, whose practice is limited to estate and trust matters, represented two Florida trustees seeking the removal of a third, co-trustee. The two co-trustees were successful, prevailing at a specially set, evidentiary hearing in the probate court which hears Florida trust matters in Palm Beach County, Florida. The hearing occurred in the probate court in the downtown West Palm Beach, Florida courthouse.
Bad trustee? What can a trust beneficiary do when there is a breach of trust or a breach of fiduciary duty by a trustee? What can a beneficiary of a trust get in the form of damages when there is a breach of trust by a trustee?
What if a trustee transfers, or sells, or gives away for that matter, trust property to a third party? And then the trustee resigns or no longer serves as trustee….. Can a trust beneficiary “go get” the trust assets which are now in the hands of the third party? Can a trust beneficiary sue the former trustee?
In a classic case of joint bank account litigation, or what could be called bank account litigation, a joint tenant who withdrew funds after the death of a bank account owner was sued by the personal representative of the account owner’s estate. A very recent case out of Nebraska, decided literally days ago, sheds light on a very common form of estate litigation which goes on in Florida all the time.
Who controls your healthcare decisions, and your body, in Florida, when you can’t make your own decisions? What if you were in an accident, such as a car accident, and were in a coma? What if you were in, what is referred to in Florida probate law, as a “persistent vegetative state?” Who controls your body and your organs in Florida?
The Defense of Marriage Act, struck down by the U.S. Supreme Court in June of 2013, continues to die a slow death. DOMA is dying. But DOMA is still around, in some form. Another nail in DOMA’s coffin occured in Utah. The Wall Street Journal, www.wsj.com, reports that “A federal judge on Friday struck down Utah’s ban on same sex marriage.”
In March 1991, the owner of a life insurance policy issued by Met Life changed the beneficiary of the life insurance policy from his daughter to his ex spouse. Was this the product of undue influence? Should the beneficiary designation change be overturned? A recent Missouri federal case dealt with these issues and the issue of undue influence and changing the beneficiary designation of a life insurance policy.