[WSBAPT] Looking for solutions

[Anna Van Pelt]

I hope everyone had a good three-day weekend, and I'm the only trying to get a jump on this week... I have a sad situation and I think I'm looking for an attorney to help the trustee start a TEDRA, but I'm open to other creative solutions too.

I'm administering a joint RLT after the death of the first spouse. In their meeting with the attorney who drafted the trust (not me), the client heard that "everything should be left to the trust." They set the trust as the primary beneficiary of their retirement accounts, not each other. Unfortunately, the trust says that any retirement accounts with the trust as the beneficiary flow into a conduit (not accumulation) trust for their children, totally bypassing the surviving spouse. There is a surviving spouse, and one child, who is 13 years old. Surviving spouse is, understandably, upset because she understood that to be money that would be available to her, and it seems likely that this was not the intent (or even the understanding) of the decedent when he signed the trust and updated his beneficiaries.

Options? If others have fixed similar problems, I'd love to hear from you.

We are also under a time crunch because the deceased spouse's trust is a QTIP unless property is disclaimed, and then it goes into a credit shelter trust. However, if the retirement accounts won't be part of the surviving spouse's estate, then the surviving spouse is clearly under the current WA state estate tax exemption, and she won't need the credit shelter.

Thanks,
Anna


Van Pelt Law
(206) 635-7250
www.vanpeltlegal.com<http://www.vanpeltlegal.com/>
Pronouns: She/Her

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