eState now allows Users to select the method of distributing General Personal Effects among multiple people.

When making a gift of General Personal Effects to multiple individuals or a class, such as “Children”, you will find a “Distribution Methods” Option available. 

There are 4 available Distribution Methods:

1. “As beneficiaries agree” 
2. Trustee’s discretion
3. Lottery
4. Other

You can select more than one.  For example, first -  as the beneficiaries agree, and if they cannot agree, then by lottery.

1. Typically, where the beneficiaries are all adults, a client may want “As beneficiaries agree”.  This gives the beneficiaries the right to come up with their own distribution.

There are two further options under “As beneficiaries agree”.

The default option “Does not require all beneficiaries to be alive” means that the surviving beneficiaries can still agree among themselves even though one or more of the beneficiaries predeceased.

The other option “Requires all beneficiaries to be alive” means that if any of the beneficiaries has predeceased, the remaining beneficiaries are not allowed to come to an agreement. Instead, the alternate method would be applicable.

It is common to also include a further distribution method, such as Trustee’s Discretion or Lottery, in case the beneficiaries cannot agree.

2. For situations where the beneficiaries might be minors, or where the client simply wants the trustee to decide how to divide up the General Personal Effects,  the client may prefer to select only Trustee’s Discretion.   

3. The Lottery option is available for situations where a dispute may arise and the client wants a built-in dispute resolution mechanism.  In this case, the beneficiaries, in turn, get to choose items.  To prevent the first person selecting the most valuable item, the client may want to equalize the value of the selected items.  This is done by checking off “Counted against inheritance”.  This should only be selected where the Personal Effects beneficiaries are also the residuary beneficiaries since they are technically “buying” the assets from the estate.

There are options to select whether the successive choice order is amended with each round and how the initial order is selected.  As well, there is an option to allow for the issue of any predeceased beneficiary to select items.