About the Course
Introduction
This CLE course will provide estate planning counsel with a practical guide to repairing and refreshing stale irrevocable trusts through trust-to-trust transfers. The panel will discuss the factors that can make an irrevocable trust's terms stale, review the fiduciary concerns involved in trust-to-trust transfers with new trustees, and offer practical drafting tools to avoid transfer tax consequences in structuring a new irrevocable trust and making the trust transfer.
Description
Estate planning attorneys and advisers frequently are confronted with existing irrevocable trusts whose provisions no longer meet the client's needs. Whether through change in family/beneficiary situations, changes in asset composition, defects in the original trust document, or different tax strategy requirements, planners must be able to modify these stale irrevocable trusts to ensure clients have a tax-efficient means of transferring assets to designated beneficiaries.
A critical tool for estate planning counsel is structuring trust-to-trust transfers to address deficiencies in these trusts. Estate planners can structure new or existing irrevocable trusts to serve as recipients of assets from these existing stale trusts, making sure the terms of the new trust meet the updated needs of their clients.
These trust-to-trust transactions are not without tax and fiduciary risks, so estate planners must be fully aware of potential transfer tax consequences, fiduciary impacts upon trustees, and various state law provisions that may complicate the transfers. Structuring the recipient trust to avoid these negative consequences is critical to achieving a tax-efficient asset result.
Listen as our experienced panel provides a practical guide to structuring trust-to-trust transfers as a means of fixing stale irrevocable trusts.
Presented By
Mr. Aiello helps business owners solve legal problems to secure revenue flow and reduce business risks. As a lawyer and business owner he has firsthand experience handling complex commercial litigation and transactional matters for his clients. Mr. Aiello's client base spans a broad spectrum of businesses including household-name consumer brands, banks, construction companies and family ventures. As legal counsel he advises personal family foundations on managing and protecting their wealth. While each of Mr. Aiello's clients may take on a unique shape or size, they all face complex legal and business challenges, which is precisely where he has focused his commercial legal practice.
Ms. O’Neil helps clients plan for the future by developing estate plans tailored to meet their goals for transferring wealth to the next generation. In addition, she also guides clients through probate and trust administration, helping to manage deadlines and resolve disputes amongst beneficiaries and creditors as harmoniously as possible.
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This 90-minute webinar is eligible in most states for 1.5 CLE credits.
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Date + Time
- event
Tuesday, November 18, 2025
- schedule
1:00 p.m. ET./10:00 a.m. PT
I. What makes a trust "stale"
II. Fiduciary concerns and risks
III. Transfer tax consequences and how to avoid them
IV. Planning and methods to deplete the stale/existing trust
The panel will discuss these and other important issues:
- How to identify trust provisions that need repair or refreshing
- State law provisions that hinder or facilitate the structuring of trust-to-trust transfers to remedy defects in existing trusts
- Potential transfer tax consequences of structuring trust-to-trust transfer vehicles and how to avoid those consequences
- Potential fiduciary concerns in trust-to-trust transfer transactions
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