FlexDraft
Drafts the Estate Planning Documents You Need Every Day
Many products boast long laundry lists of forms you might use once a year,
yet include only limited options for the document you draft every day. These
products may be nice to have on the shelf but they don't help much with
your day-to-day drafting needs.
FlexDraft takes the opposite approach by including almost unlimited
options and flexibility for the building blocks of your estate planning
practice: Wills, revocable trusts, and irrevocable trusts. The following
is a summary of just some of FlexDraft's features for different documents.
Wills:
- Tax planning options
- Marital lead (with credit residuary) or credit lead (with marital
residuary).
- True worth, fairly representative, or minimum worth funding valuation.
- Optional inclusion of all IRD in marital lead gifts (to eliminate
gain on funding exposure).
- Optional spousal disclaimer to bypass trust, as either primary
planning tool or to enable post death fine tuning of a formula marital
gift (available for outright or in-trust marital gifts).
- Optional inclusion of Second Generation Planning (a/k/a "GST Planning")
in any Will (with or without marital deduction planning), designed
to comply with the "mandatory" division requirements (without which
the actual trust division must generally be made before 706 filing).
- Marital trust options
- QTIP or "LEPA" style marital trust (or outright marital).
- Optional principal distributions (per ascertainable or non-ascertainable
standard).
- Optional testamentary power of appointment (to descendants, and/or
surviving spouses of descendants, and/or charities).
- Optional QDOT for any marital trust, with broad or narrow distributions
and optional terminating distributions upon attaining citizenship.
- Bypass trust options
- For spouse only, for children [and descendants] only, or for spouse
and descendants.
- Primary beneficiary(s) may be Spouse or children [and descendants].
- Optional inclusion of all descendants, or only descendants of
a deceased child.
- Optional special principal distributions to children [and optionally,
to descendants too] for buying a home or starting a business, with
(or without) advancements clause.
- Termination on spouse's death, with "Pot" trust option (continue
as single "pot" in bypass trust) until youngest child has reached
a specified age.
- Optional testamentary power of appointment in spouse automatically
coordinates with termination option selected.
- Options for trusts for children and descendants
FlexDraft allows you to mix or match any one or more of the following:
- "Contingent Trusts" for all beneficiaries not otherwise
covered, with 1 or more vesting ages and optional power of appointment
(appropriate for simple Wills).
- "Descendants' Trusts" for all descendants not otherwise
covered, lifetime or staged vesting, optional inclusion of beneficiary's
spouse and/or descendants, optional special principal distributions
(same as in bypass trust, see above), optional testamentary power
of appointment (special, general, or "GST Split").
- "Grandchildren's Trusts" for grandchildren only, with the
same options as in Descendants' Trusts (this enables different treatment
for grandchildren).
- "Children's Trusts" for children only, with the same options
as in Descendants' Trusts (this enables different treatment for
children, also useful for clients whose children are very young
and who are not yet ready to contemplate trusts for their children's
descendants).
- Fiduciary (Executor and Trustee) options
- Sole fiduciaries, co-fiduciaries, or sole followed by co (executor
and trustee may be different).
- Optional authority of descendants to become sole and/or co-trustee
of own trust at specified ages.
- Optionally name one or more "Trustee Appointers" by name and/or
by class, to select successor trustees.
- Optional corporate trustee removal (by spouse, by Trustee Appointer,
or by separately named Trustee Removers).
- Administrative options
- Short form or long form.
- Broad or narrow fiduciary exoneration.
- Broad or narrow investment authority.
Revocable Trusts:
FlexDraft's revocable trusts do not have the limitations found in
most drafting systems: virtually all provisions available in Wills are
also available in all revocable trusts.
In addition:
- Sole settlor revocable trusts for single or married persons, and optional
joint settlor revocable trusts for married persons.
- Additional lifetime beneficiaries can include spouse and/or children.
- Available revocable "management" trust with "pour-back" to probate
estate at death (where lifetime management is desired but an existing
testamentary plan is too complex to redraft as a revocable trust).
Irrevocable Trusts:
FlexDraft offers perhaps the most versatile irrevocable trusts of
any drafting system: virtually all trusts and trust provisions available
in Wills are also available in all revocable trusts.
In addition:
- ILIT (Irrevocable Life Insurance Trust) or Gift Trust (typically funded
primarily with assets other than life insurance).
- Sole settlor irrevocable trusts for single or married persons, and
optional joint settlor irrevocable trusts for married persons.
- All irrevocable trusts may create multiple trusts ab initio
("separate share" style), which may mirror Children's Trusts or Descendant's
trusts in Wills), or
- Single trust "pot" style, which may be either dynastic or provide
for termination (or division and retention in separate trusts) at: death
of grantor (or surviving grantor), x years after the date of death,
or date youngest child reaches a specified age (if later).
- Withdrawal rights ("Crummey powers") may go to spouse and/or
children, with either spouse or children preferred (or with all on same
footing), may be Full, "5&5" or "Hanging," and may include optional
advancements clause for a beneficiary who exercises a withdrawal right.
Ancillary Documents:
All the "standard" additional estate planning documents are included:
- Medical Power of Attorney (the statutory form, with some improvements).
- Living Will (Directive to Physician and Family or Surrogates).
- Statutory Durable Power of Attorney.
- Pre-Need Declaration of Guardian (for self).
- Designation of Guardian (for children–with optional provision for
adult incapacitated children) (note: if you prefer, guardians for
children may be designated in the Wills instead).
And More:
Every day, FlexDraft gets a little bit better (because every day,
the attorneys and Davis, Ridout, Jones & Gerstner, L.L.P., want a more powerful
drafting system). Future versions of FlexDraft will include numerous
additional documents–and so long as your license is current, all FlexDraft
updates are yours for free.
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