Insights
Estate
You have an estate plan. You don't know how it actually performs. Neither does your attorney, because nobody is measuring it against your investment, insurance, and tax decisions.
The trust cost $16,000. The beneficiary designation form that controls the larger asset took fifteen minutes to fill out in 2010 and hasn't been reviewed since.
The estate attorney's GRAT recommendation was correct for three years. The deal closed first. The $13 million in appreciation landed in the estate instead of outside it.
The trust was drafted to hold the appreciated positions. Then a joint account opened. Joint accounts bypass the trust. The carefully drafted plan received nothing.
The estate documents were current. The $1.4 million IRA still named an ex-spouse from a marriage that ended a decade ago. The trust doesn't override the form.