Category Archives: Succession
Allison Tait, ‘Family Property over Time’
ABSTRACT Family property, as the other chapters in this volume have demonstrated, comes in a variety of shapes, sizes, and forms according to jurisdiction. Legal geography helps map out contours and comparisons with respect to family and marital property and the ‘where’ matters greatly as it shapes the rules. But while space and location play […]
Mark Glover, ‘Absent Heirs’
ABSTRACT The whereabouts of a decedent’s heirs are sometimes unknown, and consequently some inheritances go unclaimed. Generally, most states regulate unclaimed inheritances by naming a custodian to safekeep the inheritance, and if the absent heir fails to claim it within a prescribed time, then the inheritance escheats to the state. The specifics of the law, […]
Isaiah Burroughs, ‘Inheriting Intangibles: Exploring Copyright Erosion Through Succession via Will’
ABSTRACT Under current copyright law, the holder enjoys copyright protection for the duration of the author’s life, extended by seventy years. However, the question arises: who assumes ownership of post-mortem copyright, and to what extent do their rights extend? Unless the recipient possesses legal or artistic insight, this transition can often represent a forfeited chance […]
Pittavino and Walsh, ‘Donationes Mortis Causa of Real Property: Missed Opportunities and Foreclosed Possibilities’
ABSTRACT The doctrine of donatio mortis causa defies and problematises the taxonomy of the common law. It stands both as an archaic monument to Western legal thought several millennia old, and as an informal, intimate, and human mode of disposition of property in the face of death. In New South Wales, there is stark resistance […]
Diane Kemker, ‘Pro-Natalism in Probate Law’
ABSTRACT ‘Pro-natalism’ is a term that has been variously used to describe any and all government policies that favor birth, babies, children, families, and population growth, as well as more focused laws that incentivize childbirth; burden, ban, or criminalize abortion and/or contraception; and otherwise disfavor the childless. Whether and to what extent US law is […]
‘Socially Distanced Wills’
Richard F Storrow, ‘Legacies of a Pandemic: Remote Attestation and Electronic Wills’, 48 Mitchell Hamline Law Review 826 (2022). The modernization of probate codes has been a slow and fraught proposition. States have long set different requirements for formalizing wills. To this day there are still states that require strict compliance with all formalities, including […]
Adam Hirsch, ‘A Battle of Wills: The Uniform Probate Code Versus Empirical Evidence’
ABSTRACT This Article explores the goals, methods, and present state of empirical research in the inheritance field. The Article synthesizes extant empirical studies – including unpublished ones and two original data sets presented here for the first time – and compares them with default rules currently found in the Uniform Probate Code. The Article proposes […]
‘Crimheritance Law?’
Kevin Bennardo and Mark Glover, ‘Crimes Against Probate’, 75 Florida Law Review 357 (2023). We stand at the precipice of a major transfer of wealth: in the coming years, trillions of dollars will pass through the inheritance system to the next generation from millions of decedents. Potential beneficiaries may be tempted to engage in wrongdoing […]
‘Criminal Law meets Estates Law: Incarceration and Inheritance’
Brittany L Deitch, ‘Estate to State: Pay-To-Stay Statutes and the Problematic Seizure of Inherited Property’, 95 University of Colorado Law Review (forthcoming 2024), available at SSRN (20 March 2023). Criminal law scholars and estates and trusts scholars do not usually travel in similar circles. They do not typically attend the same conferences or read each […]
Paweł Szwajdler, ‘Digital assets and inheritance law: How to create fundamental principles of digital succession system?’
ABSTRACT Currently, there are no generally applicable legal regulations in the field of digital succession in the majority of legal orders. However, such legal provisions are needed because digital assets are getting more and more significant in the contemporary world. Entry into force of legal regulations in this area should be preceded by creation of […]