IN RE THE ESTATE OF MYER G. BAER, DECEASED
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A Florida appellate court addressed whether a revoked pour-over trust's dispositive provisions remain incorporated by reference in a will after the trust is revoked. The court held that despite revocation of the inter vivos trust, its distribution scheme remains part of the testator's testamentary plan and governs distribution of the estate, avoiding intestacy contrary to the testator's expressed wishes.
The court held that the trust's dispositive provisions were incorporated in the will by reference as an integral part of the testamentary plan and continued to set forth the testator's distribution scheme even after the trust lost its independent legal significance through revocation, absent clear evidence of contrary intent.
[1] A will and a revocable trust may be construed together as a single testamentary plan, even if the trust is later revoked.
[2] The terms of a revocable trust can be incorporated by reference into a will, even after the trust has lost its independent legal significance, absent clear evidence of a…
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligence“the law abhors intestacy. We believe that if the testator in this case had been told that his act of revocation of the trust was going to occasion intestacy and make all his siblings his heirs in equal shares, he would have undertaken immediately to remedy that anomalous situation, so antithetical to his expressed testamentary wishes.”
Establishes the court's foundational reasoning that the testator would not have intended intestacy as a consequence of trust revocation
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Join FLexlaw to unlock all legal intelligenceMyer G. Baer executed a 1980 will that incorporated by reference a revocable pour-over trust to which his estate was to pass. The testator had previou…
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GLICKSTEIN, Judge.
Here we have a testator who excluded most of his siblings in two successive wills. Because the able trial court concluded that the circumstances of this case compelled application of the laws of intestacy, those siblings will, if the decision stands, receive the bulk of his testamentary estate. The trial court saw that the result might be unjust, but concluded there was no legitimate way to avoid it. We believe there is.
We are concerned only with the second of the two wills, which was executed in 1980. The 1980 will was admitted to probate; but the testator’s brother (who had been left $1.00 by the 1974 will and nothing by the present one), joined by two sisters, petitioned to revoke the will on the ground that the revocable pour-over trust incorporated by reference in the will, and to which the testator’s estate was to fall, had been entirely revoked. The trial judge agreed that the trust had been revoked; and we believe that while there is room for disagreement, there is enough evidence not to disturb this finding.
But the law abhors intestacy. We believe that if the testator in this case had been told that his act of revocation of the trust was going to occasion intestacy and make all his siblings his heirs in equal shares, he would have undertaken immediately to remedy that anomalous situation, so antithetical to his expressed testamentary wishes.
Accordingly, we conclude that the testator had set up a testamentary plan in the will by the use of both instruments— the will and the revocable pour-over trust. The instruments had been drawn when he was thought to be at death’s door. The testator revoked the inter vivos trust when he felt well enough to manage his own affairs. Surely he did not intend to leave a will that did nothing but designate a personal representative. All of the circumstances surrounding the revocation of the trust point to incorporation of its disposi-tive provisions into the will by reference, notwithstanding the loss of force of the trust instrument standing alone. In Fifth Third Union Trust Company v. Wilensky, 79 Ohio App. 73, 70 N.E. 2d 920 (1946), the court said:
Is the testator to be deprived of the complete testamentary disposition which he had so painstakingly made in the trust agreement merely because he saw fit to remove the $500 from the trustee and determine the living trust features? No basis in logic or rules of construction require such a result.
A deed, a contract, or any other instrument may be incorporated in a will by reference, and its térms employed as testamentary clauses, although such instrument may have lost its force as to the peculiar original purpose of the document.
Id. at 78-79, 70 N.E. 2d at 922.
Section 732.512(1), Florida Statutes (1981), provides:
A writing in existence when a will is executed may be incorporated by reference if the language of the will manifests this intent and describes the writing sufficiently to permit its identification.
Here, we hold the terms of the trust were incorporated in the will by reference as an integral part of the will; and that, in the absence of evidence that the testator clearly manifested a contrary -intention, they continued to set forth the testator’s distribution plan even though the former had lost its independent legal significance.
We reverse those portions of the trial court’s order which by implication hold that the pour-over trust’s distribution scheme was no longer incorporated in the testator’s will when the trust was revoked, but is superseded by the laws of intestacy. The case is remanded so that the trial court may issue an order consonant with this opinion.
HURLEY, J., and OWEN, WILLIAM C., Jr., Associate Judge, concur.
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Bartelt v. Bartelt, 579 So. 2d 282 (Fla. 3d DCA 1991)…mandate the technique by which the qualified person must receive title. Kelley, supra at 22. To hold otherwise would discourage Florida residents from making wills and promote the passage of property through intestacy laws. See In re Estate of Baer, 446 So. 2d 1128, 1129 (Fla. 4th DCA) (“But the law abhors intestacy”), rev. denied, 456 So. 2d 1181 (Fla.1984). In In re Estate of Hill, 552 So. 2d 1133 (Fla. 3d DCA 1989), we held that a decedent’s homestead property that was devised to the testatrix’ stepdaughte…
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Wehrheim v. Golden Pond Assisted Living Facility, 905 So. 2d 1002 (Fla. 5th DCA 2005)…that results in partial intestacy.”); In re Estate of McGahee, 550 So. 2d 83, 87 (Fla. 1st DCA 1989) ("[W]e are mindful that intestacies are not favored in the construction of wills.”), review denied, 560 So. 2d 232 (Fla.1990); In re Estate of Baer, 446 So. 2d 1128, 1128 (Fla. 4th DCA) ("[T]he law abhors intestacy.”), review denied, 456 So. 2d 1181 (Fla.1984); Dutcher v. Estate of Dutcher, 437 So. 2d 788, 789 (Fla. 2d DCA 1983) ("Intestacy is not favored over a disposition under a will where construction of th…
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SUN Bank/Miami, N.A. v. Hogarth, 536 So. 2d 263 (Fla. 3d DCA 1988)…of February 24, 1978. Without it, the will does nothing more than appoint a personal representative and exercise the power of appointment under her husband’s trust, a result not likely to have met Lilly Glickstein’s intent. See In Re Estate of Baer, 446 So. 2d 1128 (Fla. 4th DCA), review denied, 456 So. 2d 1181 (Fla.1984). Both the will and the amended trust agreement must be read together to give effect to her testamentary plan. Consequently, we hold that the amended trust agreement was incorporated in the wi…
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