On January 14, 2022, the Iowa Supreme Court issued an Opinion in the Matter of the Guardianship of L.Y. The case is the first interpretation of the new Guardianship Act which went into effect on January 1, 2020. The case involved young parents who consented to a temporary guardianship for the paternal grandparents to serve as guardians of their five-year-old daughter so that the daughter could be placed on the grandparents’ medical insurance and easily travel with them on vacation. The guardianship was also to provide an opportunity for the parents to complete their divorce and to establish stable lives.
More Legal News & Information... →On October 7, 2020, the Iowa Court of Appeals issued a Ruling in the matter of the Sandahl Trust (2017). Craig Sandahl executed the Sandahl Trust which was a Revocable Grantor Trust in 1993. The Trust was funded with substantially all of Craig Sandahl’s assets. The Trust was last restated by a document dated August 14, 2017, which was two months before Craig Sandahl passed away. The Trust distributed assets to two groups of recipients. One group was the “Descendant’s Trust” of which Craig’s children’s lineal descendants were the beneficiaries and the other group was given to the Community Foundation
More Legal News & Information... →On June 12, 2020, the Supreme Court of Iowa issued a decision in the Harold Youngblut vs. Leonard Youngblut case. The case involves two brothers, Harold and Leonard Youngblut. Their parent were Earl and Agnes Youngblut. Earl and Agnes were the parents of twelve children, three of whom predeceased them. Earl and Agnes formed a corporation, Youngblut Farmland Ltd. in 1980 and transferred most of their farm assets into the corporation with the exception of farm ground in Tama County known as the “South Farm”. Both Harold and Leonard worked for the corporation until Leonard left in 1988 over a
More Legal News & Information... →The Iowa Supreme Court, on November 17, 2017, issued an opinion interpreting a definition utilized in an inheritance tax exemption. The Court points out that for many years prior to 1997 the Iowa inheritance tax had an unlimited exemption for any share of the estate passing to the surviving spouse, limited exemptions for lineal descendants and lineal ascendants and no exemption for step-children. In 1997, the Legislature eliminated inheritance tax on property passing to parents, grandparents, great grandparents, children, stepchildren, grandchildren and great grandchildren among others. In 2003, the Legislature added a definition for “stepchild” which defined “stepchild” as the
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