Why should you advise your clients to sign testamentary documents in blue ink? And should they leave a dollar to that disinherited heir? Read on and find out.
Divorcing clients should change beneficiary designations and take other steps to make sure their soon-to-be ex doesn't reap an unintended windfall if they die before the divorce is final.
There's a six-year statute of repose for legal malpractice - unless the alleged act or omission isn't discovered until the client dies. Estate planning lawyers want more protection.
Petitioner brought a citation to discover against respondent and others to recover transfers that a disabled person, Agnes Spinnie, had made before the petitioner became her guardian.
What happens to our password-protected online accounts when we die? A new Illinois law establishes the procedures that allow fiduciaries to get access to "digital assets."
After a false start in 2015, the legislature delivered and the governor signed a bill this year that gives fiduciaries the power to access email, social media, and other digital assets of a decedent.
Proposed legislation would amend the Trusts and Trustees Act to require that all transfers of property into a trust be evidenced by a written conveyance and acceptance by the trustee.
Making installment sales to intentionally defective grantor trusts can be a valuable estate-freezing strategy. But there are pitfalls posed by recent IRS scrutiny.
By Zachary J. Freeman, Thomas M. Staunton, & Arthur W. Friedman
December
2015
Article
, Page 32
A look at the unique malpractice risks - including the third-party beneficiary rule and the extended statute of repose - faced by estate planning lawyers.
A groundbreaking appellate case holds that probate courts can sell an estate's "underwater" real property free and clear of all liens, including mortgage liens.
The proposed Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act would make it easier for executors and others to access the growing body of electronic data Illinoisans leave behind.
Illinois has a new, plain-language statutory health care power of attorney, and lawyers are getting used to it – and, in some cases, tweaking it to suit their practices.
A new law makes the small-estate affidavit better for rounding up stray assets that didn't make it into probate-avoiding trusts and more palatable to banks and other entities.
Residential condominium units as well as parking units or units specified by a declaration to be allocated to a specific residential condominium unit now fall under the penumbra of "residential real estate" in the Illinois Residential Real Property Transfer on Death Instrument Act.
Thanks to ATRA, a married couple with a properly structured estate can pass more than $10 million free of federal estate tax. But beware income and state-estate tax consequences.
The allowance for aged, blind, and disabled recipients of supplemental security income (SSI) recently increased from $519.90 to $531.90. 89 Ill. Adm. Code 113.
Under Illinois law, income from a trust created by an Illinois resident is taxable even if the trust is not otherwise connected to Illinois. But is the state tax constitutionally infirm?
The Illinois Supreme Court found the doctrine irrelevant to the facts of In re Estate of Boyar, leaving the question of whether it applies to trusts as well as wills for another day.
If parents treat a child they have not legally adopted as their own, he can pursue an inheritance even in the absence of their express or implied contract to adopt him, the high court rules.
While both land trusts and transfer on death instruments allow residential real estate to transfer outside probate, the land trust has important advantages for some clients, this author argues.
Recent Illinois legislation established higher estate tax exclusion amounts. Learn how clients can use gifts to substantially reduce Illinois estate taxes.
There are five ways to pay for long-term care in Illinois. This article discusses all five and brings you the latest on the ever-shifting Medicaid and Veterans' Administration rules.
