A key part of properly implementing a client’s estate plan is to ensure that assets are titled so that they flow in accordance with the client’s true wishes at death. Unfortunately, many more times than we would like, this does not end up being the case, for one reason or another. We find this is a classic “you can lead a horse to water” issue. Despite our best efforts, many times a client’s estate plan is partially thwarted because of asset titling that is inconsistent with the true goals and objectives of a client. Sometimes such mistitling simply causes a missed tax or asset protection planning opportunity, but, all too often, it literally causes assets to wind up in the hands of the wrong beneficiary. At times this can be remedied, but, more often than not it cannot.

In our article, “Survey Sheds Light on the Perils of TOD and POD Account Registrations” (published in the Legal on March 6, 2018), we covered the mistitling that regularly occurs when clients are encouraged to avoid probate by designating beneficiaries to directly receive the financial accounts on death (whether by filling out beneficiary designation forms or “payable on death” or “in trust for” titling). In that article, we explained how it would have been better for those account assets to have passed through the probate process and thus, through a decedent’s well thought out estate plan.