Wills Trusts and Probate: A Comprehensive Estate Planning Guide

142 questions on wills trusts and probate, answered and cited by the UpLaw editorial team.

• Are electronic wills valid?
• Are powers of attorney durable by default?
• Are trusts revocable or irrevocable by default?
• Can a beneficiary witness a will?
• Can adult children be disinherited?
• Can a trustee delegate investment functions?
• Can a will devise the copyright termination right?
• Can you shield your own assets in your own trust?
• Can you work an elective-share calculation?
• Does a devisee take mortgaged land free of the mortgage?
• Does divorce revoke a will?
• Does saving estate tax mean a plan succeeded?
• Do IRAs require spousal consent to name another beneficiary?
• Do publicity rights survive death?
• Do words of survivorship defeat an anti-lapse statute?
• How can a will be revoked?
• How did Farkas v. Williams make the revocable trust possible?
• How did the UPC change the law of advancements?
• How do adopted, non-marital, and step children fare in intestacy?
• How do community-property states protect a surviving spouse?
• How does the undue-influence presumption arise?
• How does the UPC scale the elective share to marriage length?
• How does the UPC set the surviving spouse's intestate share?
• How do you give a no-contest clause bite?
• How do you tell a will from a promise?
• How enforceable are no-contest clauses?
• How far can an exculpatory clause protect a trustee?
• How is the traditional statutory pattern stricter than the UPC?
• How is the transfer-tax system unified?
• How long does probate take, and what does it cost?
• How should an estate be closed?
• How should a practitioner treat any printed exclusion amount?
• In what order must claims be paid?
• Is an estate plan just a will?
• Is diversification a duty or an option?
• Is publication notice to creditors enough?
• Is the omitted-child statute a forced share?
• Should an IRA be retitled into a revocable trust?
• What are the elements of a valid trust?
• What are the four non-probate transfer channels?
• What are the hard limits on freedom of disposition?
• What are the "hot powers" under UPOAA Section 201?
• What are the three myths about revocable trusts?
• What are the traps in the elective share?
• What are the two key carve-outs from "general" power status?
• What are the UPC's revival default rules?
• What did Connelly v. United States hold about buy-sell insurance?
• What did Egelhoff v. Egelhoff decide?
• What do courts actually punish in undue-influence cases?
• What does a business owner's estate plan actually require?
• What does a DAPT not accomplish?
• What does a funded revocable trust actually buy you?
• What does a spendthrift provision do, and what are its exceptions?
• What does harmless error NOT excuse?
• What does NOT get a basis step-up?
• What does probate actually do?
• What does strict compliance look like when it bites?
• What does the UPC require for an attested will?
• What do most practitioners get backwards about transfer tax?
• What fact reorganizes the whole subject of estate planning?
• What four functions do will formalities perform?
• What happens if you die without a will?
• What is ademption by extinction?
• What is a directed trust?
• What is a GRAT and what is a zeroed-out GRAT?
• What is a holographic will?
• What is an ILIT and what is its three-year trap?
• What is an insane delusion?
• What is an intentionally defective grantor trust?
• What is an omitted spouse claim?
• What is a pour-over will?
• What is a power of appointment?
• What is a QTIP and why does it matter to second marriages?
• What is a revocable living trust?
• What is a self-proving affidavit worth?
• What is dependent relative revocation?
• What is escheat, and how far does the UPC hunt for heirs?
• What is lapse, and what do anti-lapse statutes do?
• What is modern per stirpes?
• What is per capita at each generation?
• What is portability, and why is its procedural trap brutal?
• What is RUFADAA's asymmetric default disclosure rule?
• What is RUFADAA's three-tier priority?
• What is strict per stirpes?
• What is the 120-hour survivorship rule?
• What is the augmented estate and why was it invented?
• What is the basis step-up?
• What is the best defense to an undue-influence claim?
• What is the correct planning move for an artist's copyrights?
• What is the difference between a third-party and a first-party special needs trust?
• What is the difference between informal and formal probate?
• What is the double basis step-up?
• What is the first key takeaway of modern estate planning?
• What is the great inversion of the modern planning era?
• What is the GST tax and what is a dynasty trust?
• What is the harmless-error doctrine?
• What is the hidden basis cost of joint tenancy in real property?
• What is the joint-tenancy convenience trap?
• What is the lesson of Cruzan for advance directives?
• What is the lost-will presumption?
• What is the most common six-figure error in estate planning?
• What is the most dangerous estate plan?
• What is the most underused provision in the transfer-tax code?
• What is the non-claim statute, and why is it the point of probate?
• What is the one thing that actually matters about a revocable trust?
• What is the operational lesson of the ERISA cases?
• What is the organizing question of succession law?
• What is the plan documents rule?
• What is the single most important structural fact in estate planning?
• What is the single most litigated trustee failure?
• What is the standard for testamentary capacity?
• What is the tangible-personal-property list?
• What is the tax consequence of a general power of appointment?
• What is the trustee's duty of loyalty?
• What is tortious interference with an expected inheritance?
• What makes a disclaimer "qualified" for tax purposes?
• What paralyzes an operating business at an owner's death?
• What remedy did In re Rothko impose?
• What replaced the old "legal list" of permitted trust investments?
• What should be done when the natural executor sits in a conflict?
• What single fact drives will-contest doctrine?
• What tax returns must a personal representative file?
• What three questions does every intestacy statute answer?
• When can a trustee be removed?
• When does a power of attorney end?
• When does a revocable trust make the most sense?
• Where is the real tax exposure for a mid-size estate?
• Who bears the estate's debts and taxes?
• Who has standing to contest a will, and who bears the burden?
• Why are powers of appointment the flexibility valve of a long-term trust?
• Why did a bequest to "friends" fail?
• Why did the will fall in Moses but survive in Lipper?
• Why do banks refuse powers of attorney, and what does the UPOAA do about it?
• Why does a direct inheritance destroy public benefits eligibility?
• Why does incapacity planning matter more than death planning?
• Why does the credit-shelter trust still exist after portability?
• Why does the UPC count the survivor's own wealth?
• Why do sloppy family limited partnerships lose?
• Why do springing powers behave badly?
• Why is a HIPAA authorization necessary alongside a health-care directive?
• Why is crisis long-term-care planning usually too late?
• Why should a drafter never just write "per stirpes"?