A "Better" Approach to Estate Plan Funding, Part 8: Survivorship Rights

Exploring when to keep automatic transfers to a surviving spouse or partner intact

Note: While this series is for paid subscribers, I will have the entire course available for a separate one-time download after publishing the last installment. Stay tuned for more.

Table of Contents

1. Intro

2. Video

3. Slides

4. Key Points

Intro

In the prior installment of this series, we tackled a tough set of alternatives - fund the revocable trust now through a change in ownership, or fund the revocable trust at death through a POD/TOD designation (for financial assets/closely-held business interests) or beneficiary deed/Ladybird deed (for individually-owned real estate).

As alluded to in that presentation, rights of survivorship supersede POD/TOD designations and beneficiary deeds. At best, these designations would only apply at second death. At worst, they would be wiped out completely by a change in ownership.

This raises another important funding question between spouses or partners - should we keep certain assets titled in survivorship form, or should we direct those (by change in ownership or transfer on death) to the revocable trust? In this presentation, I discuss some of the broader nuances of this choice and joint tenancy in general, while providing some examples where one alternative might be preferred over the other (and vice versa).

Note, too, that this question comes up for mandatory beneficiary-designated assets like qualified plans, IRAs, and life insurance. We will explore these questions in the next two installments, respectively.

Video