Vol 30, No. 6, #1. Chaos to Comprehension: Estate Planning in Wyoming.

• Author: Author: Clay D. Geittmann

Wyoming Bar Journal

2007.

Vol 30, No. 6, #1.

Chaos to Comprehension: Estate Planning in Wyoming

Wyoming Bar Journal Vol 30, No. 6, #1 Issue: December, 2007

Author: Clay D. GeittmannChaos to Comprehension: Estate Planning in WyomingEstate planning in Wyoming used to be much like trying to decipher the instruction manual for any item of technology. There was very little clear statutory guidance on estate planning so there was an element of "Hmm...let's see what happens when we plug the cord in this slot." If you didn't get electrocuted and the appliance worked, then it was a successful experiment. Likewise, if your client's estate bypassed probate, then it was a successful estate plan. The other solution was to predecease your clients, which really wasn't all that viable of an option unless one was speaking with your spouse who just happens to be the beneficiary under your life insurance policies and retirement plans. Accordingly, I can assure you that I will not provide my lovely bride with a copy of this article.

The Wyoming Probate Code, WS 2-1-101 et seq., used to provide the only statutory guidance to Wyoming lawyers preparing an estate plan for their clients. However, this guidance was more tailored towards "what not to do" rather than giving a path on how to prepare proper estate planning for a client. Since any Wyoming probate estate in excess of $150,000 currently requires formal probate administration under WS 2-7-101 et seq., estate planners in Wyoming historically looked for mechanisms to avoid the relatively onerous and confusing probate administration provisions. This typically required that lawyers and their clients employ creative beneficiary designations, survivorship titling of assets, pay-on-death or transfer-on-death designations, coffee cans of cash buried somewhere in the back 40, or trusts to minimize probate exposure. However, for most reasonable sized estates, the use of trusts constituted the primary planning tool for Wyoming estate planning lawyers due to the fact that, if properly drafted and funded, a trust can avoid conservatorship proceedings as well as probate administration.

Until July 1, 2003, the creation or use of any trust in Wyoming forced most Wyoming lawyers to rely on the Restatement 2nd of Trusts, a couple of published Wyoming cases, the common law of other jurisdictions, and a...