On Tuesday, February 19th 2013, the BBA Council approved
the recommendations
of the Ad Hoc Elective Share Committee to support An
Act relative to the elective share of surviving spouses. This action followed a
presentation by Deborah Manus, Co-Managing Partner of Nutter McClennen &
Fish and of the BBA’s two designees on The Ad Hoc Elective Share Committee, and
Suma Nair, an associate at Goulston & Storrs and co-chair of the BBA Trusts
and Estates Section. The legislation was filed by Senator Cynthia Creem and
updates the spousal elective share statute, M.G.L. c. 191, §15. The
current statute has been described as antiquated and inequitable. The
proposed legislation is similar to the Uniform Probate Code, as amended in the
2008. This legislation will ease estate administration and provide
predictability of results.
The Ad Hoc Elective Share Committee is made up of representatives from the
Boston Bar Association, Massachusetts Bar Association and Women’s Bar
Association. Colin Korzec of U.S. Trust, Bank of America Private Wealth
Management was the other BBA representative to the Ad Hoc Committee. The
Ad Hoc Committee has worked since 2004 on this legislation. They were able
to study and analyze several versions of the spousal elective share statute that
had previously been filed in the Massachusetts Legislature as well as similar
statutes filed in other states.