Jinkins v. Jinkins, 522 S.W.3d 771 (Tex. App.—Houston [1st Dist.] 2017, no pet.).
A dispute arose between full siblings and half
siblings over the ownership of certain land. The full siblings claimed
that upon their mother’s death, the property passed into a trust which
was solely for their benefit. The half siblings (children of
step-mother) claim that the property was owned by their father (the
father of all the siblings) until his death fifty years later and passed
to all siblings equally under the terms of his will. The trial court
examined the documents and the complex transactions that occurred for
over half a century and concluded that the disputed property passed
under the father’s will to all four of his children equally. The full
siblings appealed.
The appellate court reversed. The court explained
that the property indeed passed into the trust when the full siblings’
mother died and thus the property belongs solely to them. To reach this
result, the court had to engage in some very sophisticated estate and
future interest discussion which will demonstrate to my students that
the time we spend on these issues in class is important and not merely
an academic exercise.
The disputed property was originally held in the
paternal grandparents’ trust. The father was the remainder beneficiary
of this trust. The joint will of the full siblings’ mother allegedly
transferred this property into the trust before the last
grandparent died. The court determined that the remainder interest was
vested (father was born, ascertained, and no conditions precedent
existed to his taking other than the natural expiration of the life
estate) and thus was transferable.
The court next examined the joint will to determine
if it acted to transfer the remainder interest of the surviving spouse
(father) into the trust. The plain language of the joint will provided
that upon the death of the first to die (the mother of the full
siblings), all property subject to disposition by the surviving spouse
(father) would pass into the trust. Since the father’s remainder
interest was transferable, it passed into the trust solely for the
benefit of the full siblings.
The court also rejected other more tenuous
arguments of the half siblings such as that the father’s will revoked
the irrevocable trust, the father had transferred property out of the
trust so that it was no longer governed by the trust’s terms, the half
siblings were entitled to share as pretermitted children despite being
express beneficiaries of the father’s will, and the applicability of the
two year will contest statute of limitations to bar the action.
Moral: More straightforward estate planning
strategies may reduce the need for resolving cases that use archaic
techniques such as joint wills.