Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Wednesday morning, April 1. It's not an April fools day that we are going to learn about the claimants and disclaimers and all those fun things in taking up S-one 179, the Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interest Act. This morning we all get to be educated on this. And I personally am excited to really dig into some technical kind of legal stuff instead of It's true.

[Mark Blanken]: Thank you for being

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: here, Mark. If you could introduce yourself and proceed, I'd appreciate.

[Mark Blanken]: Sure. I'm Mark Blanken. I am the head of the Trust and Estates Department at the Dentsy Law Firm in Burlington, Vermont. I also serve as the chair of the probate and trust law section of the Vermont Bar Association, which I think I have served since 2015 in my eleventh year of doing that. I've been before you with various uniform acts. I was the chair of the Uniform Trust Code, chair of the Uniform Power of Attorney Act. We had a Directed Trustee Act, Decanting Act. And now I'm bringing you the Uniform Disclaimer of Property Interest Act. So it is exciting. Buckle your seatbelts.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: We always appreciate having you here. Thank

[Mark Blanken]: you. I'm gonna start off with just the big picture. And the real reason is why you should pass this act. First of all, I just Googled yesterday. Baby boomers were born between '46 and '64. So '46 means they're turning 80. We are gonna see the largest transfer of wealth go from one generation to a next in the next twenty years. And it's important that we get our laws correct, because there's going to be a lot of issues with transfers that go from one generation to the next. So this is very important. We have a Uniform Disclaimers Act, but it's really old. And quite frankly, it's really terrible. It's got to go. It's got some real problems in it. And I think that this act, which is sort of a second or third generation of the Uniform Disclaimer Act, is much, much better, and it deals with issues that have arisen since the first act. But let me tell you about the first act when it came about. Is that in 1976, congress the United States Congress passed the Tax Reform Act. And in it was a gift tax provision because the and basically what the big thing that they were doing is they were combining the estate tax and the gift tax together. So it didn't matter whether you transferred property during your life or at death. It's all going to be under one tax scheme. And in it, in the gift tax section, they basically said, if you want to disclaim property, say, I don't want this gift that somebody's given me. I don't want this inheritance that someone's given me. If you want to disclaim it and not have it be treated as a gift for gift tax purposes, you have to do four things. You have to display within nine months of the interest being created. It's got to be in writing. It's got to be delivered to the person who would be transferring it to you, like the executor or the trustee or relative or whatever. And you cannot take an interest in the property before you disclaim it. So you can't say, oh, I'll take the interest in dividends and oh, no, now I want to disclaim it. Once you touch it, it's yours. And then it would be a gift. So basically, that's where Congress was coming from. We're going to treat it as a gift unless you meet those four rules. And then the Uniform Commission turns around and passes a Uniform Disclaimer Act that says, you can only display if you do it within nine months in writing, don't take an interest, transfer to the teleporter. And they crowded out in the common law, which has no time limit whatsoever as to when you disclaim. And so if you miss the nine months, you're stuck. You own it. And you and you have to transfer it. And that's and we don't really need that rule anymore. And it's and it was it went too far. And, subsequently, when uniform acts came out, the uniform commission always puts in a second saying, oh, we aren't crowding out the common law. But but this was too early. They hadn't gotten to that, and they did. And when I moved to Vermont, I said, what? You can only disclaim if you within nine months? What if you don't care if it's a gift? You should be able to display. That's a gift tax issue. It's not a disclaimer of a property interest issue. And that's what this act will do. The first and most important thing this thing does is say, you're not confined to nine months. You can just claim later. Your tax consequences with the federal government may be different, But that's your problem over there. But you can still disclaim even if you miss the nine months. And let me tell you why that's important. Because it's when the interest was created. When the interest was created. So here's what's happening. You have mom and pop and they have wills. And let's say dad dies first, and he has a trust for mom that's gonna bypass her estate. But it says when mom dies, it goes to the kids. Okay? And the parents don't tell the kids anything. And forty years goes by, and mom finally dies. And the kids say, Oh, I'm inheriting this money from this trust. I want it to go to my kids. I want to disclaim it. I don't want it. I want to pass it down to my kids. Too late. Because the interest was created when dad died forty years ago. And he didn't even know about it. The kid didn't even know about it. But Congress didn't wanna get into a situation where people are just saying, oh, I didn't know about it. So I should be the nine month clock should start ticking when I know about it.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Karen,

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: is this how I would trust this for? Mean, may not wanna tell your kids then because Yeah. I guess they'll have a field day and hoping you die quicker, but Well Again, is it how would a trust for?

[Mark Blanken]: No. I I trust trust does do that, but your wills do too. You know, a lot of people don't tell people what's in their will. So

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: you're so you're saying this is all stuff that if that people I I'm looking for words. Up to date with making sure they have a will and a trust?

[Mark Blanken]: Yeah. I am. Yeah. Okay. So it's it's a good thing that you know? So and and and actually, that law is even more pernicious in that this is what happened, is that there are two types. So let's say there's a beneficiary and husband leaves wife that's in the whole estate. It's in a trust for her. And he gives her two he has the option to give her power. One is a general power appointment saying that it's under the code where it says, if you can appoint it to your estate, your creditors, the creditors of your estate, it's gonna be included both in your estate, wife, when you die. Or you could say just the opposite. Could say, you can appoint it to anybody except for your creditors, your state, and the creditors of your state. And if you do that, in the first instance, it would be imputable in mom's estate. In the second instance, it would bypass mom's estate. And guess what happens? The effective disclaimer is, if it was a general power of appointment, then nine month clock would start ticking when mom died. But if it's a special power of appointment, no, no, no. It started clicking when the dad died. What's the difference? It's the kid. You don't know whether you're going to get it, whether your mother's going to give it to you or not. She might say, no, I want to give it to my other kid. And you've been such a rotten kid, you're not going to inherit anything from me. But it's a different It's just crazy because the kid doesn't really know if they're going to get it because there's a power of appointment out there, regardless of whether it's special or general, which is a tax concept. And the clock should start ticking for them when they know that they've got it. And that's what this act does. It says, hey, until you know you're gonna get it, that clock's not gonna start ticking for you. So that's a very important That alone is the reason to pass this act.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Two questions. So how long has this current one been in effect?

[Mark Blanken]: It has been So when the Tax Reform Act of '76 was passed, it's only two years later that the Universe Commission came out with the first act. Yep. We passed it in '86. About '86. And we've been sort of working around it.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Okay. So I guess for me that brings up the question, and I think you shared why now is because there's this age transition that's going to happen. But I also am like, well, if we've been working around it, why?

[Mark Blanken]: Why do it?

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Yeah. Why do it? Uh-huh. Because it seems like there's a workaround. And I'll just share my second question because maybe it comes together. What is the downside of transferring? Because it sounds like you said if the parents got it, but they're like, oh, I want to give it to my kids, that they would have to transfer it rather than say, I'm going to disclaim it and have it just go to my kids. I'm like, why can't we just transfer? What's the downside?

[Mark Blanken]: There is a couple of downsides. What if it's real estate? Who pays the transfer taxes on? You know? Whereas if you say, oh, it doesn't touch me because I put my hand up and said, it's systemic. It would just go right to the kids without any treatment. Federal gift taxes. It'll pass that. But also in our estate tax, gifts if you make a gift, it's includeable in your state when you die for Vermont, the state tax purposes, you die within two years of the date of the gift. If you disclaim and it and it goes by, then there's no gift. So that's enough that's another reason. But to your point, there are two states in the in the country that have not changed like us. And there are 25 states that update it. So we will be the twenty sixth state to pass this version of the thing. We need to update like the other 26 states.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Can I just add another thing? So my understanding that this will go to ways and means. It just sounds like there's tax implications for it, that there's potential revenue there.

[Mark Blanken]: There's gift taxes, but guess what? Vermont doesn't have a gift tax. We don't really have any trans consequences here.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So it's a federal gift tax.

[Mark Blanken]: It's a federal gift tax. Yeah. So that's all about good taxes. So that's the main reason, my main sales pitch, why we need to get rid of this, is that we should be able, under the common law, the other elements of a disclaimer, that'll be in writing, you can't take an interest in it, you gotta transfer it to somebody, you have to notify somebody. You can't just silently say, I've disclaimed it. It's gotta be known, and we'll get into that. But those are the issues. What also this act does, it does, as I said, it will clear up when that disclaimer is effective, when you have time to do it. And then there were a couple, two issues. Number one is when you have joint property, which I'll talk about, where more than one person co owns and if there's a right of survivorship, there were some complications. And this act clears that up. And number two is that there are, besides disclaiming property, we sometimes want people to disclaim powers. Because as I said, sometimes when you have a general power of appointment, those assets are includable in your estate. And you might say, I don't want that power. I'm not going to accept that power. And so then it wouldn't be suitable in your estate for state and purposes. So then there are also third party type of disclaimers, like executors, trustees, people who have powers of employment, that this has been expanded to talk about those issues. So that's a good thing. So I thought I would do a walkthrough, which I think was that. And I think this is the type of statue that lends itself to an easy walkthrough. So I have to say you had a late night last night with immigration and ICE and stuff. So this is probably a nice respite for that. So starting at the beginning, I'm in thirty seconds. Forty one zero one, forty one zero two, forty one zero three, forty one zero four. I'll take them all together. Forty one zero one, short title. What the title is? Forty one zero two, definitions. There's really we there's a few definitions. I don't think they're worth worth going into any of them. There's no questions about them. Three, forty one zero three, the scope. It applies disclaimers of interests and proper and powers and properties. So we're going to talk about both of those, powers and properties. And then 4104, that's this supplemented by other law. That's why I said earlier, I said it crowded up in the old days, it crowded out the common law. This is the standard provision that is in almost every single uniform act. It says we're not crowding out. We're supplementing the common law. We are not crowding it out. We've got four done already. We're up to forty one zero five. This is the main event. This is the heart, the meat of the statute. So it says that a person can disclaim a power or an interest in property. Again, the dual concept of disclaiming powers or disclaiming property. B, parents can disclaim for children. That wasn't in the old act. That clears some things up. So if you have a minor child, the parent can disclaim for you, provided the parent and the child do not have a conflict of interest. So I kind of have that case right now. Want to terminate a trust and basically would go to the people who are getting the distributions now, but their children and that sort of thing. And they want to explain for their children. They're cutting off their children. They have kind of a conflict of interest. Like, we're going to take the money and you're not going to get anything. So if that happens, they can't. But generally, we need parents to just be able to stay.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Can I ask you a question? What would be the situation I'm trying to When would they want to I'm just trying to understand the situation where one would disclaim for their minor child. I'm not sure I understand

[Mark Blanken]: When they would explain for the minor child?

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yeah. What would be the situation where

[Mark Blanken]: Where they don't have any monetary You want to change who the trustee is. You want to change a power in a trust. There's nothing dealing with the beneficial interests at all. It's all administrative. The parent says, yeah, this is good. And my kid would agree with this. There's a lot of times when parents think their economic interests are harmonious with their children. But I would say most of those changes that are done under the Uniform Trust Code are of that nature. You're usually particularly changing trustees when you want

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: to get a trustee. So not getting the in the property.

[Mark Blanken]: Yeah. 50105C. It's got to be in writing. And now what's interesting is

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: I thought that is d.

[Mark Blanken]: D. Oh, you do? Okay. Sorry. The same. Yeah. Parent wants c. The parent wants to see. Okay. So the next one is it's gotta be in writing. And so a couple things there. Number one is that under our law now, it can be by email. That's a writing. Okay? Two, it's gotta be signed. Number one is you'll see it back in the other saying, electronics are signature fine. So getting back to that email concept that that's gonna be fine. And also, it adds from the will section that if someone's giving a will and let's say they don't have the ability to sign, they can direct somebody else to sign for them. They've added this into the statute. This is new. It's not in the old disclaimer act. This is an improvement. And number three, it's got to be delivered. And that section four-one 112 will go into delivery in a second. Next section. It can be your disclaimer doesn't have to be all or nothing. You could say, I'm going to explain a fraction of it, half. I'm going explain a percentage of it. I'm going to explain 75% of what I'm getting. I'm going to A monitoring amount. I'm gonna explain $100,000 of what I'm getting, and the rest can go to my kids. It could be for a term of years. I'm gonna explain for x amount of years. And also, you can limit the power. I've given this power, and I'm gonna accept some of the power, but there's aspects of this power that I'm going to explain. So it talks about there's more flexibility. This is new. It's not in the old old statute. Becomes Next section is it becomes irrevocable when it's delivered or becomes effective, whichever last occurs. So it's sort of a complicated thing. But I would say that it just because when you deliver it, but sometimes there could be a delay in when it becomes effective. And therefore, whenever it actually does become effective, it will happen. And then the next section, a disclaimer is not a transfer, an assignment or release. Getting to your point. What is the effective fee? What if you do transfer? Yeah. Who pays the transfer tax out there? And that comes up later in the act. Okay. So that's the main event. We have two ancillary provisions, 106. So the disclaimer takes effect at the time the instrument giving the property becomes irrevocable. So, I gave you an example of husband and wife in the trust, and it became irrevocable on the husband's death, and therefore the interest was created there. And then but I said, if there was well, let's say there was a power of attorney that or a power of appointment that mom had, and so she could have changed whether the son is gonna get it or not, then it's not irrevocable for the son. And therefore, he can disclaim when mom dies. Another thing that's happening is, and in our state, is the use of enhanced life estate deeds. Very, very popular. I'll digress here for thirty seconds to explain what's happening. In Medicaid planning, you have to spend down to $2,000 of your accountable assets. Your house is not accountable asset. But if you put it into a trust, it is accountable asset. But what you can do, Medicaid can also pick up in Vermont. It reimburse itself out of your estate. So what people are doing in in Medicaid planning is they're saying, mom basically is saying, I'm giving it to my kids, but I'm retaining a life estate with the power to sell into mortgage. That's where it becomes enhanced, because most likely states don't have that. Because if you have those powers, the Department of Health will consider that you own it, and therefore it's a non accountable asset for eligibility into Medicaid. Okay? Very popular. When you do that deed, you don't have to really notify the kids that they're the remainder of it. So they might not know that they get the house until mom dies. So there are these delays. And therefore, that would start to that's when becomes irrevocable. So that life estate deed really isn't irrevocable because mom has retained the power to sell and can change it at any time. So until mom dies, then it becomes irrevocable. That's when you can start to disclaim.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay. And Ken has a question.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Is it is that the part you have to do that five years in advance No. Where they can take it? There's there there's something five years in advance. Right?

[Mark Blanken]: Yes. Yeah. The general rule, everything. The house is sort of a special asset, so that's been termed nonaccountable. But anything that is is a countable asset, then you've got a five year look back role.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: And did that just get changed from three and went to five years? Like, if you go into a nursing home or something like that?

[Mark Blanken]: No, it's been five years for a while. It's actually sixty months.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Okay. All right. Thank you.

[Mark Blanken]: So if you have a portfolio account or checking account, those are all countable assets. You better get rid of them for five years before you apply for Medicaid.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. Quick question. Wasn't the clawback I

[Mark Blanken]: thought they could clawback

[Bob Paolini (Vermont Bar Association)]: the hats above a certain amount or something. Is there a financial threshold for that? That's why they use the enhanced life, so you can't claw back.

[Mark Blanken]: No, I think that no matter what, even if the house is worth $2,000,000

[Matt Getty]: There's a substantial equity limit. Sorry to jump in.

[Mark Blanken]: Oh, there is what?

[Matt Getty]: Man, there is an equity limit.

[Mark Blanken]: Oh, an equity limit. Yeah, it's not that must be relatively new then.

[Matt Getty]: No. There's been an equity limit for a while. It's indexed to inflation, so it keeps increasing and it's more than what what affects most Vermonters. But certainly if you had a $2,000,000 house, it would be an issue.

[Mark Blanken]: Okay.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: What is the limit?

[Matt Getty]: I don't have that exact figure at my fingertips. It's, I think it's over $650,000 at this point.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Thank you.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Matt, if you could just identify yourself for the record since you jumped in, which is fine, but just so people know who just commented on that.

[Matt Getty]: Yep, so I'm Matt Getty. I'm a lawyer in Rutland, and I chaired the VBA study committee on this bill.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Okay, great. And we'll be getting to

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: you after Mark, so thank you. Okay, Mark, go ahead.

[Mark Blanken]: So I'm at 4106 And basically, what that says is when you disclaim, you can't say, I'm disclaiming it and, oh, by the way, give to this child with that. No, no, no. You can't do that. You could just only put your hand up as a stop sign. And then we have to look at the instrument and says, okay, but what happens if you're predeceased? Where would it go? So you can't control where it goes. Otherwise, it's a gift. And also, this act does, that the previous act does, is it broadens who disclaim. It's not just individuals. Charities can. Charities can disclaim as well. And in fact, I'll just digress here. I've got a case right now where this woman died. She didn't have a spouse. She didn't have children. And her will named her attorney to be the executor. He said, I'm not doing it. I decline. The alternate was her account. She said, no, I'm declining too. So we were without this executor. Deep in her will was M and T Bank was appointed as a trustee of grandchild's trust. So somebody goes knocking on the door of M and T and said, we're without a fiduciary in this estate. Would you be willing to do this? And M and T said, yeah, we'll do it for you. So the next step is Section 107 of the probate code says, can get allowed the will can get allowed if you got the consent of the surviving spouse and the heirs of law. So surviving spouse, not. Heirs of law, well, she had no children. So we had to do an heir search. And we found out she had two cousins. And one was actually named in the will, but the other one wasn't. So we send out the notices, and the one who's named in the will signs it right away. Yeah, I agree to allow the will. The other one, radio silence. So now I have to go and say, okay, we don't have the consent of the heirs. We got to go to a hearing. So we go to a hearing, or I said, I asked the court, we need to set it up for a hearing. He said, notify the beneficiaries. There were 31 of them. And so one of the gifts was to a husband and wife. And so we just sent out one notice to the husband and wife, because they were getting $5,000 together. And And our probate court judge said, no, you have to notify both of them individually. I thought that's bad. And then there was a minor, so we notified the parent. And he said, no, no, no, you've to get a guardianship for the child. I said, what? And so finally, when he issued that ruling, I said I wrote a letter because I wanted to be kind to the judge. I said, would your honor be persuaded that if you looked at section 107.3 or something that says that a parent at this stage of the game, the parent is out of the mind. And he said, well, I treat it as a motion, I'm denying your motion. But he granted the hearing anyway. So was happy. But it took us over a year to get this will allow because of all these complications. There's a charity that's getting something. And they don't want it. Guess what? Under our act, they're too late to display. Their interest got vested when she died. So it's too late for them on the bad act. Under this act, they'd be able to display. Charities don't necessarily want what you give them, particularly museums. They say, yay, your art won't tell you that it's really ugly, but it just doesn't fit with our collection. And then the act is good because it says, Okay, if you're displaying, it's going to go according to the document. But if it goes to your estate this is a great rule in this act. If it goes to your estate, you don't have to send it to probate. We'll look through that, your will, and we'll give it to the people who are in your will. We'll avoid the whole probate administration. I think that's genius. And then it also says that if there's and then let's say there's nobody, and it goes by intestacy, but you don't really have anybody, then it will cheat to the state. So we all know about a cheat right here. It goes to the treasurer. 4,107, second ancillary rule, and then we'll go fast. This is about when joint people own. So let's say you have father and son own a bank account together and they add the name. What it allows is the law presumes that they own fiftyfifty, but the presumption is rebuttable. So what this statute says is, hey, survivor, you can can explain the greater of your per capita share by the head per capita, or what the consideration furnished was. So if your dad put 100% in that, you could just spend 100% if you want. Put in 60%, you can do 60%. If you put in 40%, you could just spend 50%. So that has clarity that we did not have before. So that's really great. And that usually takes effect upon the death of the co owner. That's when you can have the right to explain. Okay. Now we're gonna I'm gonna take 4108, four one zero nine, four ten, and four eleven as a quartet, because they're all dealing with the same issue. And this is when third parties can, other than the person who is getting the donee or the legatee is getting it, These are third parties. For 01/2008, basically, the rule is trustees have the ability to disclaim. So assets are coming into the trust. The trustee says, No, I don't want to take this little triangular piece of land that's by a cloverleaf on an interstate that I'm never going to be able to sell, and I got to pay taxes on. No, no, no, I don't want it. So they have the power to explain that. 4,109, let's say that you've had a trust and the trust has given the child a general power of appointment. So it's going to be equitable in their estate. They say, my estate's too big. I don't need to disclaim that. I don't want to have this power because we're going to be incrutable in my estate for estate tax purposes. This act, which the other one didn't, allows the person who is vested with that power, who was granted this power of opponent, could say, I don't want the power. And they can also say, I want some of the power, but not all of the power. I want to be able to maybe decide among the descendants, but not the creditors not my creditors, not my estate, not the creditors of my state. So that's very tax oriented thing. So that's four one zero nine.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Karen has a question.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Is me just trying to understand the whole picture. So if somebody disclaims property or funds and there's not a next person, what happens?

[Mark Blanken]: Well, what we do is we have a lot of hurdles to go through. So we look at the trust and say, what does the trust You know, if all these people are dead, where does it go? And most trusts, most directors trust, we try to have a disaster clause and says, and it's a lot of our favorite one is it goes to my heirs at law and state of my intestacy under the state of Vermont. It's official. You could say charity. But if there's absolutely nobody. Goes to secretary treasury, insists and displaying property. And I looked it up. Think they can help. Before it excheats to the state, I think that's a three year timeline. So now let's say they executed the power of appointment, and they said, Okay, these are the kids that are going to get it. 4110 says, you're the appointee. This appointee says, oh, I don't want it. Dad may have exercised the power to give it to me, but I don't want it. And that also implies for takers in default. Meaning this is that a lot of times we always grant these powers to these trust beneficiaries. But a lot of times they don't exercise them. And we have to have a provision in there that says, well, what happens if they don't exercise? And typically what it says is it goes to their heirs, it goes to their issue for STERPIES. So it just filters down the bloodline. And so if they're a taker in default, they have the ability also to say, hey, I don't want it. And it probably will go past that. It treats you as if you're predeceased. And then if you're deceased, it usually goes to your issuer for service. And then four-one hundred eleven, this is when trustees are particularly trustees or executors. If they've been given a power, then they can say, I don't want this power. So when would that occur? Here's the number one answer on the big board. A lot of times when we're drafting these trusts, a husband dresses for wife and he sets up a trust for the wife's life. He usually names his wife as the trustee. He can do that. And the concern is that what if you gave the wife a power that was so great it would be inclusible in her estate instead of bypassing it? She might want to say, oh, I want this to bypass my estate, so I'm going to explain that power that my husband gave me. And they can do that. And they'd have to do it within nine months if they don't want to treat it for tax purposes. But they can do it under this act, which is great. So trustees can disclaim powers. On to four twelve. This is a long and important statute. But I think we can run through it pretty quickly because conceptually, it's pretty easy. In 412A, we have a few definitions. I just point out to you that these definitions are really internal to this section. So in 4.102, we have definitions that are applied to the whole act. These definitions in A just apply to this act. And I don't really need to go into it. I think it's a little complicated. And it really applies to states that don't apply to us. Let's move on to B. Delivery can be by personal delivery, first class mail, or any other method likely to result in receipt. So what I'm thinking of, as you may know, in Microsoft Outlook, you can put a fee when you send an email, you can put a feature on it saying, I want to know when this person opened up this email. And so that you have a receipt function on your email. So that works beautifully. So we've done that. Okay, now we're gonna go from the rest on. It's like we're gonna talk about different situations. So if you have a will or intestate succession and you want to sustain, you got to give it to the personal representative. Now, that is kind of a modern term that we have not adopted. So let me digress a second, fifteen seconds. Wills, if someone isn't named in a will, they are an executor or an executrix. If you die without a will, you have an administrator or an administratrix. If you have a will, but let's say your executor is dead and no one's named, then you have what we call an administrator. We call it DBN, or no, a CTA. Whoever

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: reports this bill has to say that. You're paying very good attention, Zachary.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: You've got all these questions? So

[Mark Blanken]: cum More questions. Testimento adnexo means cum with testamento, a testament, a less will and testament, annexo, annexed. So it's telling me if there's a CTA after that administrator's name, we've got a will. And this person was not named in the will, they were named by the court. And then there is DBN, which is the bonus non, meaning the goods. I'm not the first administrator and I'm finishing up what an administrator did before me, did bonus non. The goods are not administered. And you can be a CTA DBN. So we have a broad class, which jurisdictions like Florida have said, let's just call them personal representatives instead of these Latin words. I kind of like the Latin words. So that's and then if there is none, you can always file it with the court. So notice this sector is called delivery and file. So there's usually we're going to talk about delivery, but our last resort is usually fine. Okay, next one. Testamentary trusts delivered to the trustee. So testamentary trusts. What are testamentary trusts? So wills trusts usually come in two flavors. One is wills trusts that are built into the last will and testament. They're called testamentary trusts. Those are outside or a separate document. They're called intervivos for during life or sometimes living trusts. So if it's a testamentary trust, then you deliver it to the personal representative. And if there is none, you deliver it to the court. If it's an intervivos trust, the question is, is the settlor alive, the person who created it? If they are alive, deliver it to them. They are dead, deliver it to the trustee. Next one, beneficiary designation forms. Okay, so we're talking about life insurance policies. You name who gets the life insurance proceeds when you die or retirement account, who gets the rest of your retirement account if you die before you pulled all the money out? With them, you deliberate it. If it's not irrevocable, you send your disclaimer to the designator. That's usually the plan participant who owns it. But if it is, let's say that person dead, now you find you've got it, then you deliver it to basically the custodian, be it Charles Schwab or Fidelity or wherever it is. So that's the next section, H. If it's real estate you're disclaiming, you got to record it. You got to put the world on notice that you So that it's going to help anybody who's searching title. The next one, joint tenants with the right survivorship or tenants by the entirety. You have to deliver that written disclaimer to the person who takes. If you disclaim, you have to figure out where it goes and you can deliver it to he who takes. Next one, if you're an appointee under a power of appointment or a taker in default, you have to deliver it to the holder of the power. But if there's none, then to the fiduciary trustee. But if there's none, file it with the court. Next one. This one I didn't really understand. There's appointees under a power of appointment, and I think it's talking about maybe fiduciaries. But there are other types of powers that again, all appointees in K as well. They go to if they're disclaiming it to the holder of the power, then to the fiduciary, then to the court. And then L, trustee disclaimers of a fiduciary power is they deliver to if it's like a testamentary trust, they would send it to the personal representative. If there's not, it goes to the court. If it's outside the court, they can send it to the settlor. But last, last of all, events, it's to the court. And then finally, if you're an agent under a power of appointment and you want to disclaim maybe a power that was given to you under that, you discovered now that mom's now gone in the nursing home and you're reading for the first time that you've been appointed the financial agent over things. You can say, hey, I I want to explain. And you're you have to give it to the principal, I. E. Mom or the principal's representative. So that might be you in this case. Okay, moving right along. 4.13, when disclaimers are barred. A disclaimer is barred when you've already said that you disclaimed the right to explain. I release it. I'm not going to explain. I prevent myself from displaying. It happens in that case. In section B, it's barred if, as I said, you can't take an interest in it. You can't say, hey, I want some of the income and oh, now I want to distract you. You can't do it. You're barred by that time. You can't disclaim it if you've already conveyed it because you've you've been mortgaged it, encumbered it or pledged it. If you've if you exercise some economic impact on this asset, particularly property, then it's too late to disclaim it at that point. And then if there's a judicial sale of the interests sought to be disclaimed occurs. So if there's a judicial sale, if you get to that point, you're too late to disclaim. Okay. What's interesting is fiduciaries can disclaim a power that they've been granted, even if they've exercised that power. So it's a little bit different from property. I said, with property, you can't take an interest in it and then say, I want this thing. But with fiduciaries like trustees and executives, you might have used that power before, but it's not too late to explain that. Say, henceforth, I shall no longer have this power. This act is great. It's very flexible in that regard. Displaysment can still display non fiduciary powers, but only if they have not used it in their favor. So again, said, if you take the interest, you're using it in your favor. But there are ways that you might be able to use a piece of property where it wasn't in your favor, it was sort of administerial or something like that. That doesn't present. You've got to take an interest in it. And if you haven't taken an interest, it's still not too late, even though you may have done some other things. And the next one is your disclaimer is going to be barred if there's another statute out there in Vermont Code that prevents you from this claim. So we might see something Matt, you might be able to answer this because this comes up quite a bit. And I had to research this. But what happens if you have somebody on Medicaid, and now their cousin out in North Dakota has died and left you their estate? Can you say, oh, no, no, no, I don't want to hit this inheritance. It's going to knock me off Medicaid. Can you disclaim it? Courts that I've researched have said, no, no, no, you can't disclaim. So there are other statutes out there that I don't know if there's a statute that we have passed in the Medicaid, because I don't practice in that area very much, that says, no, no, no, you can't disclaim property. If you're a Medicaid recipient, you can't display property coming in. So it becomes that we want you to use that property up before we shell out more money to support you. And this is this is a little bit of a conundrum. This is f. And it says that even if your disclaimer is barred, it still effectuates a transfer to the person who would take. So it's a little bit of an oxymoron, I think, because one would say, hey, if it's barred, then it's void as if it never were. But the law makes distinctions between what's voidable, what's void as if it never were, and what's voidable. And this is more of a voidable type of situation where you've disclaimed now this person would take the property if it wasn't barred by law. They still get the property under this law. So I'm not really too sure what We kind of have that in advanced directives. Our advanced directive said, even if you have a advanced directive, and now you're on meds, and now you're crazy, you're totally incompetent, you can still revoke your advanced directive. That's what our statute says. And when I asked when it was rolled out, I said, that seems like an oxymoron to me. How can you be incompetent and have it? And they said, it was in the previous statute. We just kept it. So that's that's how you make a loss.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Karen, why don't ask Yes, please. Well Not because I wanna be the reporter. It's I want just as you're talking about this and like, oh, we might just have to include this. Can you remind us about the uniform laws? Like, we have to keep it pretty much the same. What is our can we just talk about that piece of it? Like, take a step back of

[Mark Blanken]: Oh, absolutely.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: I know we've gone over this before in previous years, but I forget what it is. It's like, I know there's a line. Like, we can't change certain things or maybe anything at all. I don't remember.

[Mark Blanken]: Just the opposite. Oh, okay. We can change it. Oh, perfect.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: Get rid of this.

[Mark Blanken]: Yeah, you could get rid of it. And indeed, that has happened with almost all the uniform laws that we've had. And actually, Eric, I'm glad you're here. Because when we did the uniform trust code, we when the uniform laws are promulgated, they have official commentary. And we did the uniform trust code. We actually printed that right in the book. And then what we did in our committee was we put to the extent that we changed the law from the uniform version to the Vermont version, we put a Vermont comment. And we said, hey, we changed we took out this word and we put this word in. We did not go so far as to explain why we did it or what our thinking was. We just wanted our purpose was just to point out we're differing from the uniform law because we think it works better here. And we can change it. If you make too many changes, it loses its uniformness. So we don't want to do that. But would anybody know? Right. But we do let some people know with maybe we can put in the Vermont uniform, the official comment and then the Vermont comment. We'd like to do that if we could write in the book so that people are alerted to Sometimes we're just tweaking the word.

[Karen Dolan (Member)]: So with this one, is this in the current version, how uniform law is in its uniform. No changes.

[Mark Blanken]: We did incorporate changes from the uniform law. This is not the uniform law. This is the committee that Matt was the head of. And we went through each section and we said, does this make sense? And should we make a change here? Matt might be able to articulate some of the changes. And now I think we can speed through 114 to the end is pretty much boilerplate. So let me race through those 4,114 text qualified disclaimers. Basically, this says, hey, if you meet those qualifications that are in 25.18, within nine months of the interest being created, it's in writing, it's delivered, and you didn't take an interest, then that's gonna qualify under our act. So because it's a higher level of scrutiny that we're gonna require under the same. So it's just saying, hey, if you meet that, that's gonna make it under our act. You still might have issues with the Internal Revenue Service, but that's not our problem. Okay. 115. It has an oxymoron which says, if a disclaimer is required or permitted to be recorded, then the disclaimer may be recorded. Okay. And well, who cares about that? The next section, it says, the failure to record does not affect the validity as between the disclaimers and the taker. So it's sort of piggybacking off that last rule that I said that was in 01/2013. That if your disclaimer is barred, it still is not going to affect the next taker. In 01/2016, application to existing relationships. When you read it, you will probably not understand it because I didn't understand it. And basically you say, but the official commentary is great because it says, hey, if before the effective date of this statute, you were under the nine month rule, you're not going to be able to revive that nine months by this statute becoming effective. We're not reviving or letting you extend it. You're not grandfathered in your passage. Four seventeen electronic signatures. That also, you might be very familiar with them. But this is a very standard uniform law that's in all the uniform laws. And I really had to ditch. I asked several people in my office, what does this mean? And I finally dug down and I found out. What it's saying is under the federal act, the states have a right to write over it. And Vermont has exercised that right in Title IX, Section two seventy, etc. And it says that electronic signatures are legal, valid, and binding. So I hark back to when I said you could probably disclaim by email, because that electronic signature is gonna be binding. Section is uniform of application and construction, which is why do it says, please, please try to construe this in conformity with other states. And that's one of the great things about the uniform laws is that we're a small population, so a lot of cases don't percolate up like they do in big states. And so this allows you to go and say, well, down in Florida, they passed this act. Here's what they did when they dealt with this property. So you can look at the uniformness of it. 4,119 severability clause saying if any, this is just boilerplate. If anything can't be law under Vermont law, then the whole act isn't bad. It's not all tainted. It's just that section. And then finally, repeal that this would repeal the previous act, which we need to get rid of. And then 4,121. I noticed that this is important because it's come up before and other things. And this says it's going to be effective upon passage. We had that come up, I think, in one of our acts that we previously did. Because usually they're July 1. But when the Senate was introduced, I don't think that we were not pushing it. We were neutral on that issue, whether it becomes effective July 1 or effective on that passage. So that is the walkthrough of the act. As I say, it's a big, big improvement over what we got on the books. And here's the big reason why. In 1976, when they passed the Tax Reform Act, the amount that was excluded from estate taxation at the federal level was $120,000 The act was affecting about 7% of the population, believe it or not. So only at 01/2020. By the time we got to the year 2000, it had moved up to 675,000. That meant that husband and wife could transfer twice that amount, over 1,200,000.0, to the next generation. And I remember when George Bush was running for office in 2000, he was against the death cats. And it was getting a lot of traction. And I thought, why is this act it's only affecting 3% of the population now. It's 1,200,000. Only 3% of people are affected by this act. Why is it getting so much political traction? Time magazine did a poll, and they found that 19% of Americans thought they were in the top 3% of wealthiest Americans. They said, wow, America's a great place. Then it was an index for inflation, and it crept up. And in 'six, 'seven, 'eight, it was at 2,000. Then it jumps to 3.5. By 02/10, it is 5,000,000. It dies. It gets resurrected by Obama on 12/17/2010. And now we go through stagnation, and it's just going because it's indexed for inflation. And there was no inflation between 02/10 and 02/19. It had inched up by inflation from 5,000,000 to 5 and a half million. Along comes Trump and the Tax and Tax Cuts Act. They double it. It goes from 5,500,000.0 up to 11,000,000. And we call that the bonus exclusion. Because in that act, under the Congressional Budget Act of 1968, I think it is, they said, hey, when you do these sort of things, it's screwing with our budget. So you got to take a look at this. So it was scheduled to sunset at the 2025. And by that time, from 11,000,000, it had gotten up just a hair under $14,000,000,000 It was at 3.993. And then, so it scheduled to end at the end of last year. But along comes the one big beautiful bill. And in it, they said, we're keeping it at that level. And in fact, we're gonna inch it up. We'll just round up to $15,000,000 So at the federal level, we now have an exclusion for everybody. So spouses can transfer $30,000,000 of assets to the next generation without estate taxation. Hark back to the beginning when I talked about whether it's going to be a gift. And let's say you have an estate of $7,000,000 and you want to display, and it's going to be a gift. Or you're beyond the nine months, and you say, I don't care if it's a gift, because it's gonna eat up my $15,000,000 exclusion. And I'm never gonna get to $15,000,000 I can see that I'm 90 years old, I'm sitting on 7,000,000. There's no way it's gonna be 15,000,000 by the time I die, because I can see the goalposts where I am. So people don't care anymore about whether they're making a gift or not. Because all they have to do is file a gift tax return, but there's no tax. And because of that, that's why this nine month shackles that we have on the new act has got to go. You just got to free that up. It's just not relevant anymore.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Ian, did you have a question?

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: Yeah, just two questions. One specific one

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: for page eight, four thousand one

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: hundred eight, the disclaimer for trustees. Can we just assume that disclaiming an interest in the property or a trust that the trustee is held to the terms of the trust in doing that disclaimer?

[Mark Blanken]: Say that again. So we had like,

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: you put there was some language in about how a parent needs to have an when they disclaim for a minor child. So I'm just curious, like we don't have it. There's no Czech language in the trustee disclaiming for a trust. Is that just because we sort of operate within the terms of trust?

[Mark Blanken]: Yes. And then my other question, I guess, and

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: it goes to your final point. If you were to put on a separate hat of devil's advocate for someone who would be opposed to getting rid

[Mark Blanken]: of the nine month cap.

[Ian Goodnow (Member)]: What would be that argument?

[Mark Blanken]: The only time I've seen the argument is from the IRS, the federal a federal issue. And I think that I sort of did a little research about particularly this distinction between general and special. And I was trying to figure out, this made no sense to me. So I researched it. And there were a series of cases that came out right before 'seventy six. And it involved various family members of the Cargill family. You might know that Cargill is the largest corporation in The United States owned by one family unit. It's not publicly traded. And these Cargill errors were coming up and they said, one had general power, one had special power. And here's what the concept was from the IRS point of view was, hey, if it's a general power appointment and it's stuck in mama's state, well, that's like starting anew again. So the clock should start ticking again. But if it's special and it's bypassing mom's estate, then no, no, no, no. We aren't going to start the clock over again. And they were looking just from their viewpoint about what they could tax and the revenues coming into the United States Treasury. But it made no sense from the position of the child who wants to disclaim, because they don't know whether they're going to actually get it, whether that power gets exercised before, whether it's special or limited. They don't know if they're going to get it. So it seems to me that the clock shouldn't have run on them until they know they're actually going to get it. And that's where this act will change there.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So any other questions for Mark before we then go to Matt Getty? Ken and then Coach, and then we'll go to Matt Getty.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: So you said we're only one of two states in the nation that hasn't changed us? Yeah. What's the other state?

[Mark Blanken]: We we are in good company with, once again, Alabama and South Dakota. So three states. Yeah. We're we're the third. So on a map, I think that it has been circulating, this little map. And the red one the two red ones are there. And I

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: I like those states, so I'm good with that.

[Mark Blanken]: But there's been a number of times, like we were the last I worked on the Uniform Transfers to Minors Act. I think we were in company with Mississippi at the time. Most states had moved. And I do think that I had heard many, many years ago when I started working on this is that our legislature was sort of hostile to uniform But that I think that uniform acts are good. They've they've been well vetted. They get the top people in the country to sit on these committees and think of everything under the sun they could come up.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Is there any idea why they've held back to the other states?

[Mark Blanken]: Oh, I I think it's more of omission and, you know, just inertia. It's like we have been on a number of these uniform masks. I think that they if they took a look at it, you know, they would I don't think they're doing it affirmatively, like holding on to it. Thank you. Coach.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Unmute yourself. There you are. Good

[Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: morning.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Morning.

[Kevin "Coach" Christie (Ranking Member)]: Thank you so much for that walkthrough. Very well done. You know, it's an area of interest personally. As you start creeping up on that goalpost as you mentioned. You start researching, you know this. But to get back to your point about the uniform acts, we have been getting more involved over the last, I'd say, five years. Yeah, two two and a half bienniums in uniform acts because they do more for us than they do not. And clearly, as we as a state. Come up on the goalposts. It becomes mission critical. You know that we move forward in that direction. So I just wanted to thank you for your detailed work and your presentation. Thank you.

[Mark Blanken]: Thank you.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Thank you. So yeah, as far as uniform acts and uniform laws as well, can't deal with uniform law without saying thank you to Rich Cassidy who was really instrumental in getting us aiming towards doing uniform law commission work.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: Anyway. Kudos to Rich.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So Matt Geddy, we'll turn to you and then after that we'll take break.

[Matt Getty]: Okay, thank you. Just fair warning, I do have a client arriving imminently and will need to leave, but I did want to emphasize a couple of points and provide you a couple of anecdotes. One is, you know, in terms of what you were just discussing, I just want to underscore that this bill is revenue neutral for the state of Vermont. So we're not changing the tax law at all. The tax law on this subject is governed by the federal statute, the Internal Revenue Code. The nine month window that applies for that purpose still applies for that purpose. But as Mark pointed out, there could be situations where an individual would want to disclaim where the nine month window wouldn't be relevant to their situation. And so having in our statute is unhelpful. And in fact, the Uniform Law Commission emphasizes a point about the language that is in our existing statute in section nineteen fifty two that is actually misleading with respect to future interests in a way that could lead somebody who's just reading that statute to think that they can disclaim that their language is inconsistent with the federal tax law. And so their point is that's a potential trap for the unwary and if we just take this provision out entirely, we don't talk about timelines, people will know that if they're trying to disclaim for a tax reason that they're going to look at the tax code for that, not at state law. So that was one thing. I do have, I mean, I think some months ago, I sent, when this was initially introduced, I sent to the chairman a red line of our version and how it varies from the Uniform Act, and I can send that again if that's helpful. We did make some changes in our Vermont comments with those changes. You know, a lot of that just has to do with specific Vermont quirks. For example, Mark mentioned enhanced life estate deeds. So we modified as a part of a portion of Section 12 of the Uniform Act to make that specific to our situation and differentiate it from a provision that's in the Uniform Act that applies to states that have adopted the Uniform Probate Code and things like that that are not relevant to us. So there are a number of things like that, but for the most part, we try to keep these things as close to the Uniform Act as possible in order to promote the goal of these Uniform Acts, which is uniformity across states so that, you know, if for some reason, you know, a practitioner in one state is looking at what the rules are in another state, they're going to look familiar.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So if you could send that to Nate so we can put it on our website, that would be helpful. Thank you.

[Matt Getty]: Yep, I will do that. A couple of anecdotes from my own practice that came up recently. I think Mark and I have talked about this several times over the years for whatever reason it would come up and we would say to each other, Why do we have this statute with this nine month limit? And what finally spurred us to take action on this, I guess, was an aggravation I had in my own practice. I had a situation where an individual actually needed to file a tax qualified disclaimer. And I was looking at our statute and was feeling a little uncertain about the requirements for effectively making and delivering that disclaimer. And so this was a situation where there was no probate. All the assets were in trust. Ended up, to make a long story short, I ended up filing an assetless probate with the county court just for the sole purpose of delivering this disclaimer so that there wouldn't be any question that about whether state law requirements were filed in order to effectuate the disclaimer. So one of the things I really appreciate about this statute is Section 12, the delivery provisions that tell you specifically how to deal with each kind

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: of

[Matt Getty]: asset rather than just having some general language. It's much more particular. So sure, it makes it a lot longer, but as a practitioner, it's a lot easier to follow kind of an instruction manual. Okay, here's my situation. What do I do? The statute tells me. So that would have been great to have in my situation. Another thing that came up for me recently was I had a couple come and talk to me who had inherited an interest in real estate, and this was an incredibly fraught situation with a complex family, unopened probates, just a total mess. But their part of the family tree was fairly simple. And unfortunately, had received some bad advice about disclaimers in the past. They had not disclaimed the time window was gone. They now own a share of this property, but their situation is one where you know, had their probate that they were involved in not being completed, disclaiming outside of the nine month window would have accomplished their goal of title in this asset ending up in the hands of the people who actually wanted to own it, it would have been a pristine result. Now, they are looking to potentially make a gift of that to somebody, and they will have been in the chain of title, which could have environmental liability consequences in the future and things like that. So, are reasons why people may want to disclaim outside of the nine months and not be bound by that. So I think those were the main highlights I wanted to emphasize, be happy to forward on that red line later this morning so that you all can review it in more detail.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Any questions for that? So I do have a question, but maybe it's for Mark or Ben. So the have the probate judges weighed in on on this? How are they involved or or not?

[Mark Blanken]: We haven't run it by the credit court judges And it doesn't it just sort of tangentially affects the administration of that. So they How much Well, the one thing we do is the provisions are in there to at least put them on notification. We want to notify particularly when it gets to at the end of administration, there's what we call the decree of distribution. You have to say who's getting it. So they're gonna have to know if someone who's named in the will has already disclaimed and so is passing to someone else. They're gonna But you're gonna do that. The practitioners will take care of that filing it with the court. So how much

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: or knowledge will the probate courts need to have or training or anything like that on this? This has to go with whether the on passage effective date is appropriate.

[Mark Blanken]: Usually what happens is that in a state Well, usually there's a final accounting and it's usually and that's usually when you prepare a proposed decree of distribution for the court. And then that's when you want to explain to the court, oh, by the way, if you read the will, you're thinking this person's going to get it, but they've disclaimed. So it's now passing to their children. So you want to explain why there's a difference between what the will says and what they're actually doing. But it really doesn't have to be done, I think, until the court is ready to sign off on a decree of distribution.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: So probably don't need to have a later effective date for that. But I have emailed chief superior judge just to make sure that we've crossed that T, dotted that I.

[Mark Blanken]: Yeah, think if another thought came up is that usually when a lot of times you have to give notice to everybody who's named in the will. But I think that let's say if you say I give so and so $100 and you pay the $100 and you have got them to receipt, you file that receipt, you can drop that person off the service list. They're out of this. They don't have to get notice on what happens now. Because they got paid what they were paid. So I

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: think

[Mark Blanken]: that you'd have more of an incentive as a practitioner to get that disclaimer in if you want to drop them off the service list.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Alright. So we do have to hear from Chris Delev who had to be called away to another Yeah.

[Bob Paolini (Vermont Bar Association)]: I'm from the Vermont Bar Association. Chris left me his proxy because he had

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: to Oh, well, alright. So let's hear from you. We'll have you come to the witness chair then. So sitting in for Chris Dealey.

[Bob Paolini (Vermont Bar Association)]: Yes. Please don't let anybody outside this room.

[Mark Blanken]: Again,

[Bob Paolini (Vermont Bar Association)]: Bob Palini from the Vermont Bar Association, the first VBA. Chris Giulia, we brought Chris in on this conversation back in the fall, December maybe, when we had a draft. He's run it past his trust committee and the Vermont Bankers Association, the other VBA is in full support of this bill has passed the Senate. And he's asked me to put that on the record on his behalf. One other point that I know Eric is going to make, Mark finished his testimony by talking about a provision he was reading from the bill as introduced. The Senate amended that bill on Eric's advice. There was the severability clause, which apparently doesn't, it's in every uniform bill draft, but it's not needed here because we have something in title one that provides it. So that's the difference.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Yep. Okay.

[Kenneth Goslant (Clerk)]: All right.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, thank you very much. We don't have anything until eleven unless we wanna talk Garrick into doing a walk through of the bill at quarter 02:11 instead. Will that work for you, Eric?

[Eric FitzPatrick (Legislative Counsel)]: Yeah, if you would never prepare, don't have it printed yet.

[Martin LaLonde (Chair)]: Well, gives us twenty five minute recess. So we'll go off live, we'll be back at quarter to eleven to take up s two zero three.