Category Archives: Succession
Dubravka Klasicek, ‘Wills in the Digital Era’
ABSTRACT Oral will is the only type of will that can be made orally, in front of two simultaneously present witnesses with general legal capacity. The way oral wills are made has not changed much since ancient Rome. However, today’s technology has made it possible to create oral wills by recording testators last words on […]
Gerry Beyer, ‘Non-Fungible Tokens: What Every Estate Planner Needs to Know’
ABSTRACT Your client may own non-fungible tokens (NFTs) and ask you for estate planning advice. Would you be caught off-guard and give your client the classic ‘deer in the headlights’ look? Obviously, that would not be prudent. To make sure this doesn’t happen to you, this article uses a FAQ approach to provide you with […]
‘Don’t Forget About the Fakes’
Reid Kress Weisbord and David Horton, ‘Inheritance Forgery’, 69 Duke Law Journal 855 (2020). In the Estates textbook I use, most of the will execution cases involve testators whose clear intent is unrealized because they bungled strict execution requirements. The Uniform Probate Code and the Restatement (Third) of Property: Wills and Other Donative Transfers – […]
Weisbord and Horton, ‘The Future of Testamentary Capacity’
ABSTRACT Recently, the #FreeBritney saga cast a harsh spotlight on state guardianship systems. Yet despite their serious flaws, guardianship regimes have benefited from waves of reform. Indeed, since the 1970s, most jurisdictions have taken steps to protect the autonomy of people with cognitive, intellectual, or developmental disabilities (CIDD). Likewise, lawmakers are currently experimenting with supported […]
Gerry Beyer, ‘Electronic Wills: The Changing Future of the Estate Practice’
ABSTRACT As of September 15, 2021, four states have enacted the Uniform Electronic Wills Act: Colorado (effective July 2, 2021), North Dakota (effective August 1, 2021), Utah (effective August 31, 2020), and Washington (effective January 1, 2022). Six states have enacted other electronic will statutes: Nevada (effective July 1, 2017), Indiana (effective July 1, 2018), […]
‘New York Court Conducts In Depth Analysis Of Lack of Testamentary Capacity Will Contest’
“In Matter of Falkowsky, the New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, Second Department, ‘affirmed a decree made after a nonjury trial which in effect granted objections alleging lack of testamentary capacity and undue influence, and denied the admission of the will to probate’ …” (more) [Gerry W Beyer, Wills, Trusts and Estates Prof Blog, 24 […]
Angela Campbell, ‘Intestacy’
It is said that a ‘statutory will’ imposes itself to govern the administration of an estate when the deceased has failed to dispose fully of their assets by a valid will. The rules that govern intestate estates, in both the civil law and the common law, are statutory in nature. Relevant Canadian provincial or territorial […]
Gardner and Minns, ‘Estate deadlock – when unanimity between executors is a pipe dream’
ABSTRACT This article looks at a recent judgment of the Royal Court of Jersey in which two of the five executors sought relief from the Court aimed at breaking the deadlock which had plagued the administration of the estate for much of its 19 years. The Court agreed to a request to delegate the final […]
Juliet Brook, ‘Why video witnessing of wills could sound the death-knell for formalities as an end in themselves’
“Prior to the Coronavirus pandemic, few practitioners or academics saw the formalities for witnessing a will in England or Wales (set out in the Wills Act 1837 s 9) as being unduly arduous. They require attention to detail, to ensure that the testator signs or acknowledges his/her signature in the presence of two or more […]
Yue Wang, ‘Impossibility Results about Inheritance and Order of Death’
ABSTRACT If some relatives died with no will, the order of their deaths could affect the inheritance result. When the order of death is unknown, to determine the inheritance result, there are two approaches: apply an inheritance method that is not affected by the order of death, or artificially assign the order of death. We […]