Website of the . .SANTA FE TRUST CASE    contact: sftrustcase@swcp.com

    . .  documenting professional corruption of trust and estate protections using facts from actual litigation      

  Website of the . .SANTA FE TRUST CASE    contact: sftrustcase@swcp.com

    . .  documenting professional corruption of trust and estate protections using facts from actual litigation


 

Creating a Family Trust Can Be a Good Idea

An express trust can be a very useful legal agreement if a family can decide how family-owned real property is to be passed from one generation to the next. A written trust agreement can specify ownership, occupancy, income and development details for all family members. There are probate and tax advantages and the agreement can stay entirely within the family.

One such express trust agreement, the “Santa Fe TRUST,” was created in 1979 by a husband and wife - each remarried and relocated to Santa Fe from the midwest - to provide for their retirement years and to pass family property on to their children - his three and her four children.

The Santa Fe TRUST Agreement: Property, Trustee, Revocability and Terms

The motivation for the Santa Fe TRUST began in the mid-1940s when, at his death, a  famous New Mexican resident of Santa Fe distributed his real property to his descendants. Thirty years later, one of those descendants who had inherited some of the Santa Fe land purchased a family home nearby as part of her plan to relocate and retire to New Mexico from suburban Chicago. The two family properties (home and land) became the “trust estate” under the six-page Santa Fe TRUST Agreement (the “trust instrument”) she created with her second husband (as “co-settlors”) in 1979.

Under this Santa Fe TRUST Agreement, title to the two family properties was transferred to the husband and wife together as “trustee” for common benefit during their life together and, through a “successor trustee,” for the benefit of a surviving settlor and all the children thereafter. A home-town Illinois bank was named as a “corporate successor trustee” in the event of the incapacity of the husband-wife trustee to act.

While both husband and wife were alive, the Santa Fe TRUST Agreement was “revocable,” that is, it could be amended or cancelled by its two signatories acting together. However, once one of them died, the agreement could not be changed - it became irrevocable.

Under terms of the Santa Fe TRUST Agreement, income from and use of the properties was to be exclusively for the benefit of husband and/or the wife while they were alive and only passed to the children when both had died. However, ownership of (title to) the family property could not be transferred or changed without written approval of the beneficiaries, a restriction which meant that a surviving spouse had to honor the original terms of the agreement once the other had died. This meant that all seven children from the extended family would be treated equally and that the survivor could not dispose of the family assets without the written approval of the younger generation.    

Effects Following the Creation of the Santa Fe TRUST Were All Positive

The co-settlors accomplished a lot in creating the Santa Fe TRUST Agreement. The major family assets were placed into cooperative ownership, a commitment was made to life in New Mexico (for the co-settlors and two of the children), an orderly estate plan was established which provided for both retirement and inheritance where all parties in the extended family were treated fairly across two generations, and tax and probate issues were settled in advance.


                               (TO GO TO ANY TIME PERIOD OR CASE, CLICK COLORED BOX) 

1992-2002

 

2007-

 

2008-

 

2006-

 

2002-2003

 

2003-2005

 

1950-1992

 
  1. Inherited Land

  2. Remarriage

  3. Home Purchase

  4. TRUST Agr’mt

  5. TRUST Estate

 
  1. Hospice Care

  2. Irrevocability

  3. TRUST Viol’n

  4. Land Transfer

  5. Home Transfer

 
  1. Hospice Nurse

  2. Att’y Conflict

  3. Att’y Quits

  4. Att’y Threats

  5. Release Offer

 
  1. Land Recovery

  2. Mediation Viol’n

  3. Order Violation

  4. Nursing Compl’nt

  5. Att’y Threats

 
  1. Statutory Claims

  2. Pro Se Complaint

  3. Trustee Standing

  4. TRUST Review

  5. Court of Appeals

 
  1. Common Law Claims

  2. Att’y Complaint

  3. Att’y Quits

  4. Court of Appeals

  5. Supreme Court

 
  1. Full Complaint

  2. Pro Se Filing

  3. 20-Yr Scheme

  4. TRUST Constr’n

  5. Legislation

 

This website uses generic descriptors for individuals and for organizations including law firms, healthcare institutions and courts. Each generic identity corresponds to real people or organized entities involved in Underlying litigation.

Actual district, state and federal court case numbers can be made available on request to the following inquirers: (1) attorneys licensed to practice law in the State of New Mexico willing to support the trustee’s litigation; (2) individuals or groups seeking to invest in or contribute to the Santa Fe TRUST Case Advocacy Fund; and/or (3) any family trustee or beneficiary of a family trust who has experienced - or is experiencing - trust and estate difficulties similar to those described here.

Qualified inquiries should be initiated by email only to “sftrustcase@swcp.com”.