Wills, Trusts, and Estates

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An introduction to the laws governing the disposition of property after death, either by intestate succession or by will. This course will also look at the creation and termination of trusts and the laws of estate planning.

Black Letter Outlines are designed to help a law student recognize and understand the basic principles and issues of law covered in a law school course. Black Letter Outlines can be used both as a study aid when preparing for classes and as a review of the subject matter when studying for an examination. Each Black Letter Outline is written by experienced law school professors who are recognized national authorities in their subject area.

Authoritative coverage provides detailed explanations of the provisions, definitions, and concepts of the Uniform Probate Code (UPC) and the Uniform Trust Code (UTC). UPC topics covered include probate jurisdiction of the courts; intestate succession involving wills and donative transfers; and probate of wills and administration. UTC topics include creation, validity, modification, and termination of trust; discretionary and revocable trusts; creditor's claims and spendthrift trusts; duties, powers, and liability of trustees; and rights of persons dealing with trustees.

This new Exam Pro contains sample tests that cover an entire wills, trusts and estates course, as well as mini exams in discrete topics such as intestacy and future interests, as well as take. The book covers the Uniform Probate Code and general common law principles. A detailed answer key explains why the correct answer is the best choice and why other choices are not.

This comprehensive guide provides an overview of the rules and principles of estates and future interests, including concurrent estates, marital estates (including the modern elective share), and powers of appointment. It includes new innovations from the Restatement 3d of Property, modernizing the law of future interests and dramatically changing the Rule Against Perpetuities. The book is also the very first publication to incorporate the new Uniform Powers of Appointment Act (2013). The book also has exercises, with answers at the back. Valuable for students in first-year Property and upper-year courses in Trusts and Estates.

Detailed outline on Future Interests and Perpetuities law, including expert explanation of black letter law, charts, and practice exam questions.

This product contains an outline on trusts. Topics covered include elements of a trust, trust creation, transfer of beneficiary's interest (including spendthrift trusts), charitable trusts (including the cy pres doctrine), and a trustee's responsibilities, power, duties, and liabilities. It also covers duties and liabilities of beneficiaries, accounting for income and principal, power of settlor to modify or revoke, powers of trustee beneficiaries or courts to modify or terminate, termination of trusts by operation of law, resulting trusts, purchase money resulting trusts, and constructive trusts.

The topics covered in this outline are intestate succession, simultaneous death, advancements, disclaimer, killer of decedent, elective share statutes, pretermitted child statutes, homestead, and formal requisites of a will. Also discussed are revocation of wills, incorporation by reference, pour-over gift in an inter vivos trust, joint wills, contracts relating to wills, lapsed gifts, ademption, exoneration of liens, will contests, and probate and estate administration.

High Court Case Summaries on Wills, Trusts, and Estates contain well-prepared briefs for each major case in Sitkoff and Dukeminier’s casebook on Wills, Trusts & Estates. High Court briefs are written to present the essential facts, issue, decision and rationale for each case in a clear, concise manner. While prepared briefs can never substitute for the insight gained by actually reading a case, these briefs will help readers to identify, understand, and absorb the core “take away” knowledge from each case. Moreover, these briefs are followed by a useful legal analysis, which provides extra tips and contextual background about each case, connecting the case to the broader concepts being developed throughout the casebook. This book also supplies case vocabulary, which defines new or unusual legal words found throughout the cases. Finally, to enhance the reader’s recall, there is a corresponding memory graphic for each brief that portrays an entertaining visual representation of the relevant facts or law of the case.

This book introduces students to the federal gift, estate, and generation-skipping transfer tax laws; grantor trust rules affecting the wealth disposition process; and the income tax rules applicable to estates and trusts. It covers recent cases and secondary literature and, reflecting the current trend toward globalization, it also includes a discussion of comparative law. It emphasizes the lawyer's role as drafter or estate planner and suggests ways to avoid problems that otherwise lead to litigation. It closely tracks the authors? more detailed hornbook, using the same section numbers for easy retrieval of information in the longer version.

This book provides an outline and analysis of Wills, Trusts, and Estates, in a convenient format both for class preparation and studying for exams. It is a clear and concise explanation of legal concepts and terms, the rationale and inter-relation of various principles, and provides hints for analysis, strategies for evaluation, and study tips. Topics covered include intestacy, will execution formalities and contest, revocation, will contracts, will substitutes, construction and interpretation, restrictions on disinheritance, trust creation and operation, fiduciary administration, powers of appointment, future interests, the Rule Against Perpetuities, and planning for incapacity. It is particularly useful in cutting through the fog of future interests, and making sense of the many ancient doctrines that befuddle students and inform modern practice. This title also includes self-testing, review questions, and detailed explanations.

The Third Edition of Concepts and Insights on Trusts and Estates makes complex doctrinal rules easier to understand by exploring the history and rationale behind those rules. The analysis is thorough, and focuses both on common law doctrines and statutory reforms—with an emphasis on the Uniform Probate Code and the Uniform Trust Code. Each substantive chapter closes with a set of exam-like problems designed to test understanding of the material included in the chapter. The authors also include thorough solutions to each of these problems. This is the only book in the field that combines thorough doctrinal analysis with more than 60 review problems, each with complete solutions.

This book provides students the opportunity to draft an entire estate plan for a fairly typical couple, from the initial client meeting and retainer letter, to the will, revocable trust and the transmittal letter. Students can role-play as clients or lawyers and work in teams to draft the documents, or they can work through the documents individually. The chapters take them through the initial client meeting where they learn details about their clients’ lives and probable beneficiaries. Then the students will analyze the clients’ property and work through the advantages and disadvantages of different ways of holding the property, as well as the clients’ intentions regarding the succession of the property at death. The students will learn to calculate homestead, family allowance, exempt property, intestate shares, and the elective share, in order to understand how the estate would devolve under various default rules. Then students will draft a living will, durable power of attorney, health care proxy, and disposition of physical remains. Finally, they will draft a basic will and revocable trust. When they are done drafting the plan documents, the students will draft a letter explaining the work they have done for their clients and enclose a final bill, which they will draft from the time sheets they will have maintained throughout the representation. The final chapters offer some additional drafting exercises to deal with future interests, a special needs trust, and the clients’ acquisition of additional property that could lead to tax consequences. This book provides students with a real live case study, so when they reach practice they should be able to hit the ground running.

The fifth edition of this book updates laws affecting intestate succession, wills, guardianships and trusts. It introduces wills terminology to the lay audience and summarizes the law of trusts with references to the Uniform Trust Code and the Restatement of Trusts. It uses problems arising from celebrity peccadilloes and deaths, such as those of Prince, and the mother/daughter team of Debbie Reynolds and Carrie Fisher to illustrate legal issues. The book can be adopted to supplement a traditional wills and trusts class or as the sole text for a seminar.

Expert authors provide an introduction to wills, trusts, and estates.