{"id":468,"date":"2011-02-07T17:15:42","date_gmt":"2011-02-07T17:15:42","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/?p=468"},"modified":"2011-02-07T17:15:42","modified_gmt":"2011-02-07T17:15:42","slug":"kucker-v-kucker-general-assignment-to-trust-includes-unspecified-stock","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/?p=468","title":{"rendered":"Kucker v. Kucker – General Assignment to Trust Includes Unspecified Stock"},"content":{"rendered":"

The recent decision in Kucker v. Kucker<\/strong> focused on a narrow issue.\u00a0 Is a general assignment of assets valid for transfer of stock into an estate planning trust?\u00a0 The court answered in the affirmative, but not before confronting the statute of frauds.\u00a0 And not before stating an important distinction regarding real property.<\/p>\n

The facts were as follows. \u201cOn June 29, 2009, at the age of 84 years, [Mona Berkowitz]\u00a0 signed a declaration creating a revocable inter vivos trust.\u00a0 On the same date, [Mrs. Berkowitz] signed a general property assignment stating, “I . . . hereby assign, transfer and convey to Mona S. Berkowitz, Trustee of the [the Trust], all of my right, title and interest in all property owned by me, both real and personal and wherever located.”<\/p>\n

Mrs. Berkowitz \u201cdied in November 2009. In February 2010, appellants filed a petition to confirm that 3,017 shares of stock in Medco Health Solutions<\/a>, Inc., (Medco) were an asset of the Trust.\u201d<\/p>\n

Here is where the dispute arose.\u00a0 \u201cMedco was not mentioned in the assignment of stock signed by the Trustor on October 29, 2009.\u00a0 Appellants declared that the Medco shares were not held in the Trust’s brokerage account at the time of the Trustor’s death.”<\/p>\n

The beneficiaries of the estate planning trust sought a declaration that the Medco stock was an asset of the trust.\u00a0 The trial court held that \u201cProbate Code section 15207 must be read in conjunction with Civil Code section 1624(a)(7).\u00a0 In those instances where the settler intends to transfer assets in excess of $100,000, a writing specifically describing the property is required. Accordingly, the petition confirming assets in the trust is denied.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"Mekong<\/a><\/p>\n

This ruling was reversed on appeal.\u00a0 The appellate court first dealt with the statute of frauds issue, holding that, \u201cCivil Code section 1624, subdivision (a)(7), cannot be construed as applying to the transfer of shares of stock to a Trust.\u00a0 The plain meaning of the words of the statute manifests a legislative intent to limit the statute’s application to agreements to loan money or extend credit made by persons in the business of loaning money or extending credit.\u201d<\/p>\n

Then the court turned to the effect of the assignment.\u00a0 As to land, a general assignment is not effective<\/strong>.\u00a0 \u201cThe General Assignment was ineffective to transfer the Trustor’s real property to the Trust.\u00a0 To satisfy the statute of frauds<\/a>, the General Assignment was required to describe the real property so that it could be identified<\/strong>.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to the court, this restriction does not apply to shares of stock.\u00a0 \u201cThe issue here concerns the Trustor’s transfer of shares of stock, not real property. The statute of frauds does not apply to such a transfer. (Civ. Code, \u00a7 1624.)\u00a0 There is no California authority invalidating a transfer of shares of stock to a trust because a general assignment of personal property did not identify the shares.\u00a0 Nor should there be.\u201d<\/p>\n

Held the court, \u201cit was unnecessary for the General Assignment<\/a> to identify the Medco stock.\u00a0 The practice guide says that such a general assignment of personal property is a commonly used estate planning tool.\u201d<\/p>\n

So, the general assignment saves the day for the transfer of stock into an estate planning trust.<\/p>\n

Kucker v. Kucker<\/strong><\/a> (Jan. 26, 2011) 2011 DJDAR 1477<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The recent decision in Kucker v. Kucker focused on a narrow issue.\u00a0 Is a general assignment of assets valid for transfer of stock into an estate planning trust?\u00a0 The court answered in the affirmative, but not before confronting the statute of frauds.\u00a0 And not before stating an important distinction regarding real property. The facts were […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-468","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-case-law","category-trusts-and-estates"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=468"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":470,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/468\/revisions\/470"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=468"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=468"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/fresnolawyerblog.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=468"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}