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Iowa Estate Plan

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Matthew Gardner

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The recent passage of the “Setting Every Community Up for Retirement Enhancement” Act(SECURE Act) in December 2019 created some significant changes to retirement accounts.  One big change of SECURE resulted in changes to allowing what is commonly referred to as “stretch” IRA’s. Previously, beneficiaries such as children and grandchildren, were able to have funds withdrawn from an inherited retirement account over the rest of their expected life. That allowed younger beneficiaries to extend…
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If you are (a) currently acting as the guardian and/or conservator for an Iowa resident or (b) plan to be appointed as guardian and/or conservator for an Iowa resident, bigly changes are in place for 2020 for annual reports or initial reports starting January 1, 2020. I’ll leave the procedural details out for now.  (Nobody except for attorneys really read those anyway). Maybe another post for another day.  But for the annual reports for guardians and/or…
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A recent ruling from the Iowa Court of Appeals addressed gifts from a parent (now deceased) to a trusted child.  Applying the standard involving “confidential relationships” and gifts during life, the Iowa Court of Appeals affirmed that the recipient of the gifts was required to return the gifts received during mom’s life back to her estate. Quick facts:  Mom and dad had four kids.  Dad passed away a few years ago and one of the…
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First and foremost, I don’t handle divorces and won’t go further with any divorce questions because my knowledge ends with that.  In 20+ years of practice, handling a divorce 20 years ago was good enough to put away those materials. But for those that have gone through a divorce, there is typically the question about how a divorce impacts your estate plan documents.  The Iowa legislators realize that many people don’t go through the process…
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Currently in Iowa, if a decedent owns personal property that totals $25,000 or less, and that property would normally pass under a Will or the intestate statute, you can skip probate with just an affidavit.  The governor recently signed a bill that increased that figure up to $50,000 (for deaths after July 1, 2018), along with a few extra new additions to the affidavit. So…what does that mean lawyer boy?  This: If the dead…
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You gotta love email.  In seconds, I can transmit a message around the globe to one person or to hundreds of people, or I can share a photo of my dog, Georgia.  Or you can email your parents’ attorney and tell the attorney what changes to make to your parents’ estate plan to exclude one of your siblings.  Whoops. In Estate of Boman, decided earlier this year, the on-going feud between two sisters and…
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This past year, I had the opportunity to go skydiving. What a blast! I had wanted to skydive for a while so I was anxious to jump out. However,  when you are on the edge of the plane door, looking out at the ground several thousand feet below you, a slight pause is a natural feeling. Thinking about your possible demise can be unnerving. Similarly, sometimes doing your estate planning can have the same feeling. …
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Adoption can be a wonderful thing.  My niece, in this picture, is adopted and she is a wonderful addition to our family.  However, adoption can have some funky applications in the estate planning world.  A recent ruling from the Iowa Supreme Court was interesting on a couple of issues involving an adoption: To avoid paying inheritance taxes for a bequest to a non-lineal descendant, a nephew was adopted by his aunt. Even though he was…
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It is hard to believe that my oldest daughter is heading off to college this week at Drake University.  I’m excited for her as she starts this next journey in her life.  In addition to getting all of the necessary supplies, such as towels, laundry bags, books, pepper spray, etc., it is also important that parents of college-bound kids have the kids sign power of attorney documents.  While we may still think of…
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Not every marriage works out.  Duh.  Sometimes, after one ends, another marriage begins and several challenges begin.  You have the challenges of “mixing” families together, learning about snoring patterns, and discovering a new person.  You also frequently have the challenge of dealing with estate planning.  I’ll skip the issues with snoring and focus on some of the estate planning points. If you are smart…and brave…bring up the subject of a premarital agreement (or a “prenup”…