Protecting Inherited Assets in the Event of Divorce

While an inheritance is classified as a nonmarital asset, the nonmarital character of inheritance can be transmuted to marital property and income from an inheritance can be utilized to pay alimony. If the risk to inheritance is not well understood, attorneys may fail to provide their clients with the best advice to protect their inheritance. However, proper planning, including estate planning and marital agreements, may be utilized to mitigate certain risks.  

In this course, estate planning lawyer Patrick Lannon and family lawyer Dolly Hernandez will discuss how trust assets can be vulnerable upon the divorce of a beneficiary, and what kinds of planning steps can be implemented to reduce the divorcing spouse's access to trust assets, and to mitigate against transmutation risk, alimony risk, and offset risk. The program will provide practitioners with practice pointers in order to address the various risks with their clients and mitigate against these risks by employing estate planning and marital agreements.

This course will benefit family law practitioners as well as estate planning attorneys.  

Learning Objectives:

1. Identify the client's goals in creating and administering an estate plan

2. Review the classification of marital and nonmarital assets and what happens to assets in the event of divorce

3. Identify and mitigate against transmutation risk, alimony risk, and offset risk

4. Structure an estate plan to avoid risk along with marital agreements