Navigator

The Trust vs. The Allegation: Understanding "Slayer Statutes" in the Wake of Tragedy By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi July 10, 2026 The headlines out of California recently have been nothing short of devastating. Late last year, the tragic deaths of acclaimed filmmaker Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele, stunned the public. Now, a complex legal battle is unfolding in a Los Angeles County probate court, thrusting a quiet corner of estate law directly into the national spotlight. Their son, Nick Reiner, who has pleaded not guilty to charges in connection with their deaths, recently petitioned the court to compel a trustee to release over $1.5 million from a trust his parents established for him. His defense argues that he is presumed innocent and legally entitled to his own resources to fund a private criminal defense. The trustee, however, has withheld the funds. This aspect of the trial highlights a fascinating and rigid legal mechanism embedded in probate codes across the country:...

Estate Planning in the Age of Misinformation By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi June 7, 2021 As the academic year comes to a close, I reflect on the many concepts my children studied during a year of virtual learning.  Math has gone from numbers the symbols used in geometry and algebra and social studies as moved beyond memorized State Capitals to more in-depth critical analysis skills.  Primarily the validity of source information.   As my daughter finishes her elementary school years I read along as she studied the last novel of her 5th grade education -- The Westing Game by Ellen Raskin.  Published by Puffin Modern Classics in 1978 the book plunges the reader into a mystery surrounding the will of an eccentric millionaire who lived in town.  Sixteen named heirs compete with each other to determine who killed the testator, Sam Westin, with the winner set to claim the $200 million estate.  Well I wasn't 5 pages into the book and rolling my lawyer eyes at th...

From the Headlines: Famous Actors Die Without a Will By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi December 29, 2020 The year 2020 stoked our awareness of immortality.  The entire world became painfully aware that even the young, strong and healthy could fall victim to Coivd-19.  Yet, while there was a spike for estate planning services, 62 percent of Americans still do not have a will .  And it is not just the average American without these essential documents; the wealthy and famous are members of this group of procrastinators.   At age 43, Chadwick Boseman (most recently known for his role as The Black Panther ) died after a several year battle with cancer.  He died without an estate plan.  Then on November 27, 2020,  Tony Hsieh (age 46) died due to smoke inhalation.  He also died far too young, and without an estate plan. Intestate, when you die without a will, means that state legislation and a judge's oversight will dictate where your probate prop...

Glancing out my kitchen window early this morning, coffee in hand as I kick-started my day, I noticed "the boys" were in our driveway.  Over the summer months a flock of 5 to 7 wild male turkeys became "the boys" in our household as they made daily visits and precarious crossings of the fast moving artery on which we live.  Out of the corner of my eye I noticed my husband was set to leave for work, it was a great day for his 8-mile commute along Madison's bike paths.  Without thinking I warned "be careful when you take your bike out, when "the boys" get confused they run in circles and the last thing we need this morning is a couple of turkeys dashing into our garage!"  As we move into our 14th year of marriage my husband has grown accustomed to my dire predictions, yet today he raised his eyebrows just enough to convey "really Melinda, what are the chances?"  My standard response "Well, you married a lawyer.  I was trained ...

Beneficiary Forms Gone Horribly Wrong. By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi Within the legal community there is a decent amount of discussion about whether or not our professional lives will be usurped by on-line and digital platforms.  Days like today reassure me that my professional life has a few good years, decades even, before a software engineer codes me out of business. Take life insurance and children for instance.  New client call comes in.  Brief biographical information is provided related to: marital status, children, and financial instruments.  In short, caller is single with a minor child and his best friend from college is named as beneficiary of the life insurance because friend is a responsible adult who will do the right thing.  An actual attorney will likely hear this and say, "wait, tell me that again please" as her eyebrows rise higher on her forehead.  In contrast, your standard online will-writer will prompt "check here if you have na...

Busting Myths & Misconceptions: Reflections on The Grand Budapest Hotel, a Wes Cravin Film. By Melinda Gustafson Gervasi From Hollywood to Netflix to TV dramas, legal thrillers remain a popular film genre.  Recently I enjoyed watching The Grand Budapest Hotel , a Wes Craven film.  Set in a fictional remote mountain village somewhere near the borders of Germany, Switzerland, and France, it is a quirky film revolving around the owner succession of a grand hotel. There is the requisite scene for a legal drama: " the reading of the will".  From the deceased's children to her cousins thrice-removed, all assemble in a dark cavernous room, dressed in black, with an attorney at the center of attention.  Here the legal misconceptions leap off the screen: Except in limited circumstances, the attorney who drafts a will is not the Executor (or what Wisconsin law calls the Personal Representative) of the will; The will in the movie is a massive heap of papers, of wh...

As Summer 2019 begins its slide towards September our family strives to complete our annual License Plate Game.   It's a great way to reinforce the fact the United States is made up of 50 different states (for our elementary aged kids), all with different plates.....and sets of laws about estate planning & probate. Unlike federal law, such as immigration, which is the same from Maine to California, estate planning and probate laws are written at the State level.  Leaving us with 50 different sets of laws about who is in charge and where things go upon your death, as well as next of kin's ability (or lack of) to make medical and financial decisions if you are alive, but too ill to act. Keep this in mind when you are reading materials for a national audience.  For example, mass produced materials about estate planning claim the fee for a court to oversee the transfer of probate assets (those assets that do not have a designation or label on them about where ...

For the past 12 to 18 months, possibly longer, you the Personal Representative in a Wisconsin probate have gathered papers, filed taxes, written checks, emptied the fridge, sold the car, distributed the family photographs, written more checks, and have your signature notarized more times than you can recall.  And now the day is here, the day you file the FINAL papers to close the estate.  The last bill to the lawyer is paid, you have free time in your calendar once again.  Things settle down into a new routine, the routine after the loss of a loved one, the routine after the work of the probate, and it feels like something is missing. You did it -- yet those filed court papers just slide off into an abyss.  Will you get a mailing from the court, some sort of official notice that you completed this marathon of a task? If you are a Personal Representative in a Wisconsin probate the answer is simple, no.  There is no fan fare, no balloon drop, no confetti falling...

It was a Tuesday evening.  Talk radio voices floated through the kitchen air while I prepared dinner. Host: Welcome Randy from New York, what's your question? Caller:  Hey, glad I got through.  I've got a question for you.  My aunt died and I'm taking care of her affairs.  She had a retirement account, and a car with a loan on it.  How do I sell the car and pay the loan? Host: Well, looks like you'll be doing a probate.  Not much there, one retirement account, one car, and a loan you gotta pay before you distribute anything.  Now I'm no lawyer, but seems like you'll have to open a probate.....geesh, unless there is someway around it, but how are you gonna sell the car and sign the title.  Maybe you need a lawyer.... Caller:  Thanks, I'll see what I can do. Why I thought they'd hear me, I do not know. One, this was radio, and two, it was an archived show. But that didn't stop me: YOU NEED A SMALL ESTATE AFFIDAVIT. STATES HAV...

Engine of a Space Shuttle.  Image by M. Gustafson Gervasi, 2015 "Which is faster, a will or trust?  I just want my family taken care of as soon as possible."  After ten years of serving clients in the estate planning capacity, this is one query that tops of the list of client questions. My answer is often not expected. "Honestly, whether you use a will or a trust, it doesn't matter. What matters is how organized you are with your final affairs, and more importantly, how organized the person is who you appoint to handle things when you died.  If the person you appoint is crippled with grief, overwhelmed in their own personal life, or simply is an indecisive procrastinator -- then your estate will creep along at a snails pace, trust, will, whatever device you use just doesn't matter." Personally, I think trusts are a bit oversold.  Here in Wisconsin we have a low probate fee, 0.2 percent of the inventory value.  Other states can be as high as 8.0, 10...

Image by M. Gustafson Gervasi, 2015 Back in July, as irises still bloomed in my garden, I sipped a coffee and glanced at our local free weekly paper The Isthmus .  A story on page 6 caught my attention -- America's longest-serving state legislator, Fred Risser , and his wife Nancy Risser, were profiled for creating an urban oasis in downtown Madison.  Over the years the couple worked to turn an apartment complex parking lot into a lush and welcoming garden.  Towards the end of the article a nugget of estate planning insight jumped off the page -- the bequest of perennials. Nancy is quoted as saying "A garden is a living thing" after she recounted transplanting iris bulbs from her late-grandmother's home in Texas to the garden here in Madison -- the transplant spurred by Nancy's father's death.  While the focus of this article was about creating and fostering natural beauty in an urban setting, the estate planner in me saw the often overlooked bequest -...

Scanning my emails last week three little letters caught my eye, TPP.  Hmmm, what is this organization doing talking about TPP.  Turns out the letters in the email referred to a trade deal known as the Trans-Pacific Partnership, not Tangible Personal Property.  Acronyms are everywhere, and three little letters in one discipline mean something entirely different in another. Among estate planning and probate attorneys the letter TPP refer to the client or decedent's tangible personal property.  In plain English, his or her stuff.  Items one can pick up and carry, generally excluding cash and vehicles.  Think jewelry, collectibles, furniture, hobbyist gear, etc.  We all have it to some extent or another, and the question often becomes what will happen to it at death. Should you desire a specific piece to pas to a specific individual, and you have a will empowering you to leave a legally binding inventory distribution list (requirements for vary from s...

Have you seen it?  The Facebook photo that says something along the lines of  my biggest fear is one day I will die and my wife will sell my guns (or derby cars) for what I said I paid for them!  Emphasis being placed on  said  I paid for them .  Underlying the language is the fact that Facebook user has not been truthful in what was really paid for the items, and you can assume it was more than what was reported to the spouse. Sometimes substantially more. Pushing beyond the joke, this Facebook post highlights a key element of the probate process.  When an individual dies his or her probate property is distributed via the probate court unless some other instrument (i.e. a living trust) had been created and funded (i.e. assets transferred to the trust from the individual).  A first step in the process is to complete an inventory of all the decedent's probate property.  Things such as a house, vehicle, bank account, and tangible perso...

Image by M. Gustafson Gervasi, 2013 As visions of sugar plumbs danced in their head ........a classic line from a classic book I've been reading over and over again to my young children over the holidays.  And as a polar vortex sweeps over my hometown of Madison, Wisconsin, I am certain many of my fellow residents have visions of warmer climates in their head.  And with it, the temptation of the time share. Often billed as an affordable way to own a place in paradise, with the common benefit of trading rights in other locations, I see a fair number of estates with a time share asset.  Whether you a creating your own estate or handling the affair of a loved one who has passed, do not overlook the time share! Time shares are generally considered a real asset, something someone owns.  Meaning it can be sold or bequeathed.  Earlier this morning I assisted a former client who inherited a time share.  Selling it has proved anything but easy.  In our...

Sibling closeness I, as a mother and estate planning attorney, seek to preserve.  Take control and let them know your wishes.  If not, unpleasant disputes tend to arise. As the mother of two young children and as an estate planning and probate attorney, I can tell you that the "stuff" in your life is most likely to ignite sibling rivalry when you die.  From jewelry to collectibles to hunting gear -- the items that hold little to no monetary value often ignite the most intense disputes when a loved one dies. And apparently leaving tangible personal property, what we in the legal practice call your TPP, is the number one thing Baby Boomers care about leaving at death , not money.  Who gets what, that is the essential question.  When I work with my clients documents generally say "I may create an inventory form the disposes of my tangible personal property" , if so, the personal representative is obligated to distribute accordingly.  And then I add t...

Image credit: www.sxc.hu - free image Should I ever appear on the game show Family Feud (is it even still on the air) and the question on the big board was "what are 3 things commonly overlooked in a probate?", I'd stand a decent chance of scoring big.  Sure, I love games of all types, but it is my work as an estate planning and probate attorney that gives me insight regular people don't.  When someone dies I see lots of issues develop.  Just ask my husband -- he has been known to encourage me to add a happier area of law to my practice. But I digress.  What would those 3 things be -- here you go: Storage Lockers.  Thanks to "hit" shows on cable, more people are aware of the fact that storage lockers may contain property of departed loved ones.  And they know if unclaimed, they might be auctioned off.  Still, this knowledge is not at the top of their to-do list when a loved ones dies.  People are grieving, forced to converse with relativ...

Probate, it is something so many people strive to avoid.  Whether it is dumping everything into a trust or placing beneficiary forms on all of their assets, some people become very diligent about making sure nothing passes through the probate court. The downside....one still dies with debts.  And how will those be paid if there is no probate.  A properly drafted and funded trust would take care of this issue, but a do-it-yourself patch work quilt approach may leave gaps.  As it did for the family in my office today. The recently deceased parent title property jointly with children.  The various life insurance policies had beneficiary forms.  But probate will likely occur to create a neat and clean manner to sell vehicles, pay funeral bills, medical bills, cell phone, bills. In the end, organization saves more time and money than whether something is probate or not.  We just scratched the surface on the number of phone calls we have to make to tra...

Image credit:  www.sxc.hu - free image If you are over a certain age you probably receive routine cards in the mail inviting you to the local hotel for a free chicken dinner and a seminar on how to avoid probate via a living trust.  These instruments are pushed, often by sales people who are not attorneys, mainly because they are lucrative.  Proceed with caution. When I work with clients I use trusts only when the fit the situation and I feel the client has the sophistication to manage the inevitable tax issues that will develop.  Most people do not want the hassles associated with trusts, but want to avoid probate.  If so, our conversation centers around the use of: Transfer on Death Deed for real estate.  Not all states have this option, but we do in Wisconsin.  It is a label placed on a deed that states who should inherit the property upon the owners death.  Probate is avoided, and a small filing fee is paid to the register of deeds. ...

If you are like most people, in your wallet or brief case you likely carry a frequent flier card or some sort of loyalty program.  And given the kind of work I do, a natural question is what happens to those "points" when you die?  Of course, being an attorney my answer is "it depends".  As recently covered at a recent continuing legal education update it was shared that the distribution of these assets vary, and depend on the terms of the contract created by each company.  But, there is an article available on the web (dated 2011) that covers some of the big ones.  Do you use a beneficiary form?  Does your will control?  What if you die without a will?  If this seems trivial, pause and reflect on the fact that it is estimated that members are estimated to be holding approximately 3.5 trillion unused miles.  That is a lot of miles to pass without a little though and reflection. Even if you do know what will happen (they pass via will) in...

When I saw the envelope in my in-box I knew -- damn, the register of deeds rejected our filing .  A thick envelope is never a good thing; it means everything you sent them is coming back, a thin envelope means it was accepted an a confirmation slip awaits.  Just the opposite of college acceptance letters, or at least back in the day when college admission was conveyed via the US Mail and not the internet. Because the man who had died was listed as one of three people on the deed, with no statement of what interest he owned (join tenant, life estate, etc.) the presumption is tenants-in-common .  As such, his share needs to be transferred via probate, and not the much more simple HT-110 form.  To complicate matters, the decedent was a resident of Illinois, not Wisconsin where the property at issue is located.  And when that happens, an ancillary probate is needed. Ancillary is an adjective which means to provide necessary support to a primary activity or ope...