Kyle T. Kievit Attorney at Law

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Our firm is lead counsel for a disabled individual in matter currently before the New Jersey Supreme Court. In Davis v. Devereux Foundation, the Court will decide if an institution that provides residential care for the mentally disabled can delegate its responsibility of care to its employee. The employee of Devereux intentionally caused injury to a resident by scalding him with boiling water...

A case is currently pending before the New Jersey Supreme Court concerning whether the income generated from irrevocable trust could be used in the computation of an award of alimony. The trust, created by the wife’s family, provided that the trustee had discretionary authority to make distributions to the wife for her support. The husband argued that the trust income should be used to offset...

A mother of four children, two with special needs, died before she could sign a will and create a supplemental needs trust. After her death, her administrator asked the court to allow the administrator to create and fund theses trusts, arguing it was the mother’s probable intent to create and fund the trusts. While the administrator was able to convince the trial judge, the Appellate Divisio...

Sadly, a client visited her lawyer’s office with the intent of changing her will. She gave the lawyer notes of the changes to be made. The lawyer created a draft of the new will but the client never saw or signed it before her death. The Appellate Court has ruled that to be admitted as her will, the proponent must prove by clear and convincing evidence that (1) the decedent actually viewed th...

James Curcio was sworn in as the newly elected Surrogate of Atlantic County. I met with the Surrogate at the office in Mays Landing on January 13, 2011. He is getting settled into his new position and is anxious to set up his office in Mays Landing. Former Surrogate James Carney had performed much of his duties out of the Atlantic City office. Clerks at the office informed me that about 50% of...

After much debate and speculation, the Congress has enacted legislation that relieves estates less than $5 million of paying any federal estate tax, at least for the next two years. Many are surprised to hear that New Jersey still imposes an estate tax on estates over $675,000. In fact, New Jersey residents face the highest estate and inheritance tax burden in the country. Don’t be lulled into...

Many people intending to make things “easy” for their children add their child’s name to the bank account or other property. However, doing so may have serious consequences. For example, the account may be subject to claims made in the event of the child’s divorce or subject to claims of the child’s creditors. The original owner of the account might also loose tax advantages such as s...

While most estates of New Jersey residents are not subject to any federal estate tax liability, the State automatically imposes a state estate tax lien on ¬all property of the decedent. While no tax may even be due, the burden is on the representative of the estate to obtain a waiver of the tax lien to transfer the property. Until the waiver is issued, a New Jersey bank, for example, is only pe...

If you die as a New Jersey resident without a will, your spouse will always get all of your assets under only two sets of circumstances. First, your spouse will get everything if neither of you have descendants (children, grandchildren, etc.) nor are your parents alive. Second, your spouse will get everything if you have surviving descendants and all of those descendants are from your surviving...