Court Refuses to Enforce Trust’s Arbitration Clause: A Trust is Not a Contract

The Virginia Supreme Court recently held in Boyle v. Anderson, that a Trust is not a contract.  Therefore, the Trustee could not enforce the arbitration clause against the Trust’s beneficiaries. For background, the Grantor, Strother R. Anderson, created an Irrevocable Trust to be divided among three (3) surviving family members upon his death. The Trust
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Ask General Counsel: Celebrity estate battle pits Anne Heche’s ex vs. her estranged son

Published by Ask General Counsel on InsideNova, 9/21/2022 Image from Inside Nova In this issue of Ask General Counsel, we discuss another lesson to be learned through celebrity estate mistakes. On Aug. 11, actress Anne Heche died unexpectedly at age 53 without a will or trust. She was taken off life support after only 48
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Have You Been Left Out? What Happens to Unintentionally Omitted Heirs

When writing a Will, sometimes heirs who are unknown to the testator during the time of drafting are unintentionally left out, or there was an error by estate planners in the drafting of the Will.  In this situation, a potential beneficiary could lose out on valuable assets, including but not limited to, real estate of
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Supreme Court of Virginia Finds Beneficiaries of Estate Don’t Have Standing to Sue on Behalf of the Estate

Supreme Court of Virginia Finds Beneficiaries of Estate Don’t Have Standing to Sue on Behalf of the Estate
In a recent case, the Supreme Court of Virginia offered guidance about who has standing to sue on behalf of an estate. Here, the court confirmed that the personal representative, not the beneficiaries of an estate, is the proper party to litigate on behalf of the estate. Kittrell v. Fowler In Kittrell v. Fowler, Walter
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