There may come a time when one finds it necessary to contest a will, and there can be legitimate reasons for doing so. This course of action is likely to cause emotions to run high, and it could be likely that a beneficiary under the will at issue may, upon receipt of estate assets, choose to sell, gift, convert or otherwise dispose of those assets, even during the pendency of the will contest. It becomes paramount for the contesting party, then, to preserve those assets for the duration of the litigation, if only to ensure that the estate remains intact by the end of the action. The mechanism for preserving the estate is not unique to estate administration and probate, but rather a simple and effective equitable remedy, injunctive relief. Injunctive relief effectively freezes the status quo and prevents depletion of the estate assets until all claims are settled.

It can be hard enough to realize the value of an estate plan. Those who realize such value can still fall into the trap of believing that such a plan is a "one and done" proposition, a set of documents that only needs to be executed once and requires no maintenance. Unfortunately, nothing could be further from the truth. Estate plans should evolve, and just as one's financial situation and family members may change, so should the corresponding estate planning documents. Luckily, there are certain milestones that can hint that an estate plan should be given a tune-up, and these life markers are easy to spot.

Trustee communications with beneficiaries have followed an interesting legal path in Kentucky. The original Kentucky statute regarding communication with the beneficiaries required that the trustee must keep the beneficiaries reasonably informed about trust activities. This statute, KRS 386.715, did not make a distinction between revocable and irrevocable trusts. The traditional presumption is that a settlor may change a revocable trust at will, and thus the trustee of a revocable trust did not have a duty to notify beneficiaries of trust status, as the identity of the beneficiaries could potentially be in flux.

Kentucky recently followed 27 other states in enacting the Uniform Trust Code ("UTC"), which went into effect on July 15^th of last year. The sweeping provisions of the UTC will apply to all types of express trusts, even those created prior to the effective date of the law, so it is important for trustees, settlors and beneficiaries to have a thorough understanding of the new law.

Estate taxes often garner a lot of attention - particularly in an election year when the threat of raising taxes routinely becomes a political focal point. The estate tax, 40% at the federal level,[1] aptly referred to as the "death tax," does have the potential to be quite devastating. However, it is important to put the estate tax in the proper context. Instead of worrying about how much the Government will take from taxpayers' estates when they die, taxpayers should focus on what they can do now to protect their assets.

It is a story that estate planning lawyers are all too familiar with: a well-intentioned parent or relative establishes a trust for a child, the child reaches age eighteen - the age of distribution specified by the trust, and bam! The trust funds are gone in a flash; an inheritance spent on cars, clothes, or fancy vacations - not at all what the grantor of the trust had in mind for the beneficiary.