Product Description

Recent updates:

• Update: May 2019

  Dear Subscriber:

  Thank you for choosing to keep your copy of Drafting Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts current with this 2019 update. Inside, you will find new analysis, new primary law, and new practice tips on matters such as the following:

  • Impact of debt on transfers to children. See chapter 8 for new practice guidance on how to draft a will provision to deal with uncertainty regarding debt amounts owed by the testator's children.

  • Disposition of art and creative writing. See chapter 20 for information on the IRS's art advisory panel tasked with assisting the IRS in reviewing and evaluating appraisals of artwork in conjunction with federal income, gift, and estate tax returns. The chapter also outlines the procedures of the IRS's Specialist Referral Program for valuation of works.

  • Incapacity; definitions. See chapter 34 for several suggested wordings and definitions that one should observe to avoid missteps when referring to capacity of a trustee, settlor, or beneficiary. The chapter offers practical tips for drafters.

  • Donor's advisory letter. See chapter 35 for tips on drafting advisory letters from donor to trustee, describing the donor's purposes in establishing the trust in order to guide the trustee in the exercise of the discretion granted by the trust instrument. The chapter includes sample advisory letters.

  We at MCLE trust that you will find this new material useful in your law practice, and valuable in keeping your law library current.

  Cordially,

  Maryanne G. Jensen, Esq., Director of Publications

• Update: March 2017

  Dear Subscriber:

  Thank you for choosing to keep your copy of Drafting Wills and Trusts in Massachusetts current with this 2017 update. Inside, you will find new analysis, new primary law, and new practice tips on matters such as the following:

  • Provisions regarding pecuniary payments. Chapter 5 contains guidance as to a situation where a gift will lapse even in the instance where a survivorship is specified.

  • QDOT trusts-foreign tax treatment. See chapter 18 for a caution regarding the situation where a surviving spouse already lives abroad, where it is anticipated that the surviving spouse may move abroad after the death of the decedent, or where the QDOT will hold foreign property.

  • Trust payments made during the settlor's lifetime. Chapter 24 offers several new sample clauses, guiding drafting on the delicate topic of expanding use of the settlors assets upon the settlor's "incapacity" or when the settlor is "not of legal capacity."

  • Ascertainable standards-marital and nonmarital. See chapter 35 for new sample wording for ascertainable standards clauses, along with a Practice Note discussing the significance of the (subsequently overturned) 2015 opinion of the Massachusetts Appeals Court in Pfannenstiehl v. Pfannenstiehl, 88 Mass. App. Ct. 121 (2015), for such standards as they are stated in discretionary trusts.

  We at MCLE trust that you will find this new material useful in your law practice, and valuable in keeping your law library current.

  Cordially,

  Maryanne G. Jensen, Esq., Director of Publications

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