Scenario 01

---
name: review-multigenerational-estate-plan-scenario-01
task_id: trusts-estates-private-client/review-multigenerational-estate-plan/scenario-01
description: Review a multigenerational estate plan for common drafting, fiduciary, and beneficiary-designation issues, including retirement-account beneficiary structure, retained-control concerns in irrevocable trusts, administrative formalities for gift-tax planning, formula provisions tied to exemption mechanics, capacity-sensitive implementation steps, digital-asset access planning, special-needs trust drafting, cross-document consistency, and choice-of-law complexity.
activates_for: [planner, solver, checker]
---

# Skill: Review Multigenerational Estate Plan

## 1. Subject-matter triage
- Treat the assignment as an issue-identification memorandum, not a rewrite or a dispositive tax opinion.
- Read every estate-planning instrument as a coordinated package: will, revocable trust, irrevocable trusts, beneficiary forms, powers of attorney, tax clauses, funding schedules, and any side letters or instructions.
- First map the family structure, fiduciary roles, asset types, governing-law markers, and beneficiary classes before evaluating drafting defects.
- Where more than one beneficiary, trust, asset, or jurisdiction is in play, enumerate each item separately before analyzing it; do not collapse distinct plan components into one generic pass.
- If the source set reflects a single relevant item for a topic, say so expressly and explain why no further subdivision is needed.

## 2. Failure modes the skill is correcting
- Agents identify isolated drafting points without connecting them to probate, tax, fiduciary-control, or beneficiary-access consequences.
- Agents overlook urgency where implementation depends on the client’s current capacity or on timely follow-up steps.
- Agents describe a defect but fail to tie it to a governing rule, related document, and downstream effect.
- Agents miss stale language, cross-document drift, or jurisdictional mismatches that change how the plan actually operates.
- Agents produce vague “important issue” labels instead of a uniform severity assessment and a concrete remediation path.

## 3. Legal frameworks / domain conventions that apply
- Retirement-account beneficiary review: if an estate is named as beneficiary, analyze the resulting distribution mechanics, probate exposure, and whether an individual beneficiary or qualifying trust better serves the plan; cite the governing beneficiary-designation and retirement-distribution rules applicable to the account type, including the relevant tax and plan-administration provisions.
- Irrevocable-trust retained-control analysis: if the grantor retains powers affecting beneficial enjoyment or trustee discretion, analyze estate-inclusion and fiduciary-control risk under the applicable transfer-tax rules; distinguish administrative or substitution powers from powers that resemble distribution control or trustee replacement authority.
- Trustee removal and replacement: if the grantor can remove a trustee, analyze whether the replacement must be independent or otherwise non-related to avoid converting the retained power into effective control over enjoyment; cite the governing estate-tax and trust-law authority.
- Gift-tax present-interest formalities: if contributions are intended to qualify for the annual exclusion through withdrawal rights, verify that notice and administration procedures were followed for each contribution and identify missing steps for corrective analysis; tie the defect to the gift-tax exclusion rule and the trust’s withdrawal mechanics.
- Formula-funding provisions: if a trust or will uses formula language tied to estate-tax exemption mechanics, review how the clause operates under current law, how portability concepts may interact with the clause, and whether future exemption changes could alter the intended result; cite the governing tax-apportionment and estate-tax authority.
- Capacity-sensitive implementation: if there is any sign of cognitive decline or diminished capacity, prioritize actions requiring informed execution or updated beneficiary directions and treat timing as a practical and challengeability issue in the review; cite the applicable capacity and undue-influence doctrines.
- Digital-asset access planning: if cryptocurrency or other digital assets are held in self-custody, review whether fiduciary access instructions, storage methods, and key-retrieval procedures are documented in a way fiduciaries can practically use; cite the applicable digital-asset and fiduciary-access framework.
- Special-needs-trust drafting: if a beneficiary receives means-tested public benefits, review whether the trust preserves discretion and avoids enforceable withdrawal or distribution rights that could complicate benefit eligibility; cite the benefit-program and trust-administration rules that matter.
- Cross-document consistency: compare will, trust, beneficiary-designation, tax-apportionment, and fiduciary appointment provisions for inconsistencies or stale language that could create interpretive conflict; cite the specific conflicting document pair or cluster.
- Choice-of-law review: if the plan spans multiple jurisdictions or asset types, identify which law likely governs each document or asset and flag places where entity law, trust law, and situs law may diverge; cite the relevant governing-law markers or statutory default rules.

## 4. Analytical scaffolds
- Use an issue-by-issue memorandum structure with a defined severity scale stated once at the outset, then applied uniformly to each issue.
- For each issue, state:
  - the exact document, clause, designation, or administration step implicated;
  - the severity level and why it fits that level;
  - the controlling authority or governing convention supporting the concern;
  - the related document, schedule, or provision that interacts with it;
  - the concrete downstream consequence for the client or fiduciary;
  - the preliminary remediation recommendation.
- When the issue involves a numeric or threshold-based feature in the source set, measure the issue against that source figure; do not invent deal economics or fill gaps with assumptions.
- When multiple documents interact, test the issue both in isolation and as part of the integrated plan; note where a seemingly valid clause becomes problematic because of another provision.
- When the client’s capacity or timing is implicated, rank the issue by urgency and describe whether the needed act is execution-sensitive, beneficiary-direction-sensitive, or merely administrative.
- When a trust or designation depends on external administration steps, check whether those steps were completed, whether the documents reflect them, and whether any cure is available.
- When the plan includes a beneficiary with disability or public-benefits sensitivity, analyze whether the drafting preserves trustee discretion and avoids mandatory access rights.
- When a clause is formula-driven, test the clause against current law and the likely fallback result if the intended tax assumption changes.
- When digital assets are present, test whether a fiduciary can identify, access, and transfer the asset using only the instructions in the file set.
- When governing-law provisions vary, identify the default rule for each document and flag any mismatch that could affect enforcement or administration.

## 5. Vertical / structural / temporal relationships
- Trace the plan vertically: ownership → beneficiary designation → trust administration → tax reporting → distribution.
- Trace it horizontally across documents: will, revocable trust, irrevocable trust, beneficiary form, powers of attorney, tax clauses, and any funding or instruction memoranda.
- For each issue, connect the drafting point to the operative administration consequence, not just the abstract risk.
- Pay special attention to timing-sensitive relationships:
  - execution before incapacity or death;
  - notice before withdrawal-right windows close;
  - trustee action before tax-reporting or funding deadlines;
  - beneficiary updates before account or asset transfer events;
  - jurisdictional changes before asset titling or situs shifts.
- Where the source materials reflect more than one person, trust, or account, keep the chronology separate for each and avoid merging their timelines.

## 6. Output structure conventions
- Produce a memo organized by category, with each category containing discrete issues in severity order from most urgent to least urgent.
- Define the severity scale once near the front of the memo and use the same labels throughout.
- For each issue, include:
  - severity;
  - issue heading;
  - source material implicated;
  - why it is problematic;
  - related provisions or documents;
  - downstream consequence;
  - recommended remediation.
- Keep recommendations specific and actionable: identify the actor who should act, the type of action, and the timing anchor drawn from the file set or the surrounding plan milestones.
- End with a dedicated Recommended Actions section that prioritizes the issues requiring immediate review, execution, or follow-up.
- If the source set does not support a particular conclusion, state the limitation and frame the point as a review need rather than a definitive finding.