Wills, trusts, powers of attorney, probate, and protecting an elder.
Minn. Stat. § 501C.0807 lets a trustee delegate to anyone, including an affiliate. The liability shield in paragraph (c) is conditional on selection, scope, and ongoing monitoring — and Minnesota's Prudent Investor Act has no separate delegation rule.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0817 lets a trustee cut off objections to a final distribution in 30 days — but only if the proposal told the beneficiary about the right to object and the time allowed. It also lets the trustee hold a reserve.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.1005 sets three years from an adequate report and six years otherwise. The fight is never the arithmetic — it is whether a document was a report that adequately disclosed a potential claim.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0703 says a trustee who does not join in another trustee's action is not liable for it — and then takes most of that back in paragraph (g). What a dissenting Minnesota cotrustee actually has to do.
Read →Under Minn. Stat. § 502.851, a Minnesota trustee can pour the assets of an old trust into a new one with better terms — no court order, 60 days' notice. How much can change depends entirely on the trustee's discretion under the original document.
Read →An honest comparison of Minnesota trust law with South Dakota, Nevada, Delaware, Alaska, and Wyoming — asset protection, dynasty trusts, and taxes, with the real limits.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 302A.751, subds. 2 and 3a make a buy-sell binding in a Minnesota buyout. Connelly v. United States says the same agreement is 'ordinarily not dispositive' for the estate tax. Section 507.071, ch. 523, and § 524.3-803 each miss the entity.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0803 requires a trustee to give 'due regard to the beneficiaries' respective interests' — interests the settlor usually made unequal on purpose. The qualifier is the rule.
Read →Minnesota taxes estates over $3 million even when no federal tax is owed. Here's who gets caught, why married couples are especially exposed, and how planning helps.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0704 says when a vacancy in a Minnesota trusteeship must be filled, when it need not be, and the exact four-tier order of priority for filling it before anyone goes to court.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.1009 makes a beneficiary's consent, release, or ratification binding — with two exceptions that turn on what the trustee knew and what the beneficiary was told.
Read →A plain-English look at what a revocable living trust does and doesn't do for a Minnesota home — probate, homestead, taxes, and the transfer-on-death deed alternative.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0802 sets out three different regimes with three different burdens. A fair price defeats a claim under paragraph (d) and does nothing at all under paragraph (b).
Read →As of January 1, 2026, Minnesota courts can issue an order for protection against financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult — freezing assets and lines of credit and barring contact. Here is who can ask for one and what a court must find.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0708 lets a Minnesota court raise or lower the compensation a trust document specifies — and § 501C.0105(b)(7) makes that power one of the few things a settlor cannot draft around.
Read →A transfer on death deed under Minn. Stat. § 507.071 conveys real property at death without probate, stays fully revocable during life, and costs a recording fee. The traps are recording before death, both spouses' signatures on a homestead, the public assistance clearance certificate, and no right of exoneration.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.1013 lets a trustee prove the trust with a six-item certificate instead of the dispositive terms. It contains no consequence for a third party who refuses it, and knowing that changes how you argue.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0505 subjects revocable trust property to the settlor's creditors in life and at death. It attaches no claims procedure and no deadline of its own, which cuts against the trustee.
Read →Minn. Stat. ch. 523 provides a statutory short form power of attorney with fourteen categories of authority. Durability is elected on the form, the principal's signature must be notarized, and gifts to the agent themselves require a separate express authorization.
Read →A Minnesota revocable trust governs only what was retitled into it. The pour-over will under Minn. Stat. § 524.2-511 is a backstop that runs the assets you paid to keep out of probate straight through probate.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0901 judges a trustee's investments at the portfolio level and by process, not by results. The trustee who documented a strategy is defensible; the one who just held what the settlor left is not.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.1005 gives a Minnesota beneficiary three years from a report that adequately disclosed a potential claim — and the trustee decides when to send it, by a method that does not require you to receive it.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.1205 protects a disabled beneficiary's public benefits — but only if someone else's money funds it. A settlement or an inheritance that lands first is a different, harder problem.
Read →Minnesota lets a trust split the trustee's job among an investment advisor, a distribution advisor, and a trust protector. Minn. Stat. § 501C.0808 decides who is liable — and the answer surprises most settlors.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0706(b)(4) is the cheapest removal ground in Minnesota trust law — and the easiest to plead badly. Read the trust's own removal clause before you file anything.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0605 gives a revocable-trust contestant three years — unless the trustee sends a copy of the instrument and a four-item notice. Then it is 120 days. Note the section number.
Read →Minn. Stat. §§ 501C.0410 through 501C.0417 supply six ways to modify or terminate an irrevocable Minnesota trust. Only one of them beats a material purpose, and only one needs no judge.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0111 lets interested persons resolve almost any trust matter by written agreement. It buys speed and privacy — and leaves a defect that only a court order can cure.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0813 is three paragraphs long. It sets no schedule, prescribes no report format, and reaches only irrevocable trusts — so the real engine is § 501C.1005.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 524.3-803 bars claims against a decedent's estate after four months from published notice. But a 'known and identified' creditor gets served, and the personal representative who fails to look for one has a problem of their own.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 524.5-310 and § 524.5-409 both require the court to find that the respondent's needs cannot be met by less restrictive means — and both name the alternative by statute: a health care agent under ch. 145C, an attorney-in-fact under § 523.01.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 501C.0502 stops a creditor from reaching a beneficiary's interest or a distribution "before its receipt." Sections 501C.0504 and 501C.0506 mark the two edges of that protection — and Minnesota's chapter has no § 501C.0501 and no § 501C.0503 at all.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 256B.15 defines "estate" to include life estates, joint tenancies, pay-on-death accounts, living trusts, and transfer on death deeds, and § 514.981 puts a lien on the house while the recipient is still alive. Neither is stopped by avoiding probate.
Read →Minn. Stat. § 609.2335 makes financial exploitation of a vulnerable adult a crime, § 626.557 makes it reportable within 24 hours, and § 626.557, subd. 20 gives the adult a treble-damages claim — on definitions that do not match.
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