“The defining characteristic of the irrevocable trust, its permanence, is also its principal limitation. One of the most versatile responses to that limitation is the withdrawal right: a power permitting a beneficiary to demand distribution of trust assets under defined circumstances, without dismantling the trust’s protective structure. Although most familiar in the Crummey context, withdrawal rights can be calibrated to achieve income tax savings through grantor trust treatment under IRC §678, intentional estate inclusion for basis step-up purposes under IRC §§2041 and 1014, and gift-tax-neutral lapses within the “5-and-5” safe harbor of IRC §2514(e). The creditor protection analysis turns on governing law.

The majority rule treats a presently exercisable withdrawal right as reachable by the holder’s creditors, but a growing number of states, including North Carolina, Delaware, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Georgia, have enacted statutes shielding unexercised withdrawal powers in third-party trusts and providing that lapse or release does not render the holder a settlor. Layered onto this framework, qualified disclaimers under IRC §2518 allow a beneficiary to shed (or, with proper drafting, acquire) a withdrawal right after the fact, an insight Natalie Choate has emphasized, and Jonathan Blattmachr’s broader inheritance architecture positions the withdrawal right as the linchpin of beneficiary choice within a protective, GST-exempt structure. This newsletter examines the tax, creditor protection, and drafting dimensions of withdrawal rights and their practical application in modern irrevocable trust design.”

Andy Strauss provides members with commentary that examines withdrawal rights in revocable and irrevocable trusts.

Andy Strauss brings over four decades of dedicated legal experience to his estate planning practice in North Carolina. As a Board Certified Specialist in Estate Planning and Probate Law, Andy has established himself as a trusted advisor for clients seeking sophisticated estate planning, tax strategies, and asset protection solutions. A distinguished graduate of Georgetown University School of Law, where he earned his J.D. cum laude in 1978, Andy built his academic foundation at the University of Pennsylvania. There, he completed both his B.S. at the prestigious Wharton School and his M.A., graduating cum laude with a focus in Economics. Andy's comprehensive approach to estate planning encompasses everything from basic will preparation to complex trust arrangements and business succession planning. His expertise has earned him recognition as an AV Preeminent Attorney by Martindale-Hubbell™ and American Lawyer, their highest possible rating for both legal ability and ethical standards. This distinction places him among the Top Rated Lawyers in Trusts & Estates. Licensed to practice in North Carolina, Florida, and Pennsylvania, Andy brings a multi-jurisdictional perspective to his work that benefits clients with interests across state lines.

Here is his commentary:

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY:

The defining characteristic of the irrevocable trust, its permanence, is also its principal limitation. One of the most versatile responses to that limitation is the withdrawal right: a power permitting a beneficiary to demand distribution of trust assets under defined circumstances, without dismantling the trust’s protective structure. Although most familiar in the Crummey context, withdrawal rights can be calibrated to achieve income tax savings through grantor trust treatment under IRC §678, intentional estate inclusion for basis step-up purposes under IRC §§2041 and 1014, and gift-tax-neutral lapses within the “5-and-5” safe harbor of IRC §2514(e). The creditor protection analysis turns on governing law.

The majority rule treats a presently exercisable withdrawal right as reachable by the holder’s creditors, but a growing number of states, including North Carolina, Delaware, South Dakota, Wyoming, and Georgia, have enacted statutes shielding unexercised withdrawal powers in third-party trusts and providing that lapse or release does not render the holder a settlor. Layered onto this framework, qualified disclaimers under IRC §2518 allow a beneficiary to shed (or, with proper drafting, acquire) a withdrawal right after the fact, an insight Natalie Choate has emphasized, and Jonathan Blattmachr’s broader inheritance architecture positions the withdrawal right as the linchpin of beneficiary choice within a protective, GST-exempt structure. This newsletter examines the tax, creditor protection, and drafting dimensions of withdrawal rights and their practical application in modern irrevocable trust design.

COMMENT:

What Is a Withdrawal Right?

A withdrawal right, sometimes called a demand right or power of withdrawal, entitles a beneficiary to demand distribution of a specified amount or percentage of trust assets during a defined window. The most familiar example is the Crummey power: a right triggered by a contribution to the trust, allowing the beneficiary to demand the contributed amount (up to the annual exclusion) for a brief period, thereby converting the gift into a present interest eligible for the gift tax annual exclusion.

Withdrawal rights, however, are not limited to Crummey planning. They can be drafted broadly or narrowly, tied to specific events or exercisable at any time, and calibrated to serve a range of tax and non-tax objectives. The key drafting variables are:

•        Amount: a fixed dollar amount, a percentage of trust principal, a specific contribution, or the full value of the corpus;
•        Trigger: a contribution, the passage of time, a life event, or purely the beneficiary’s election;
•        Window: the period during which the right may be exercised (30 days for a typical Crummey power; open-ended for a standing right); and
•        Lapse provisions: whether unexercised rights lapse and, if so, on what schedule.

Income Tax: IRC §678 Grantor Trust Treatment

A beneficiary who holds a withdrawal right is treated under IRC §678 as the owner of the affected portion of the trust for income tax purposes. Section 678(a)(1) applies when a person other than the grantor holds a power exercisable solely by that person to vest trust corpus or income in himself or herself.

The practical consequences are significant. Trust income flows through to the beneficiary and is taxed at the beneficiary’s individual rate rather than the compressed trust rate schedule, which reaches the top 37% bracket at roughly $15,000 of taxable income. For a beneficiary in a lower bracket, this rate arbitrage produces meaningful annual savings without requiring an actual distribution, the trust retains the assets; only the tax reporting migrates. Even for a top-bracket beneficiary, grantor trust characterization may remain useful, permitting the beneficiary to use deductions or attributes unavailable at the trust level and enabling income-tax-free transactions between the beneficiary and the trust.

Whether §678 treatment continues after a withdrawal right lapses depends on the instrument’s terms and the size of the lapse relative to the 5-and-5 limits discussed below. The intended income tax result should therefore be addressed expressly at the drafting stage rather than left to accident.

Gift Tax: The Lapse Problem and the 5-and-5 Rule

When a withdrawal right lapses unexercised, the lapse is treated as a release of the power under IRC §2514, and the release of a general power of appointment is a taxable gift from the powerholder to the trust’s remainder beneficiaries. Congress carved out a safe harbor in IRC §2514(e): a lapse is treated as a release only to the extent the lapsed amount exceeds the greater of $5,000 or 5% of the trust corpus at the time of the lapse.

Planners therefore frequently size withdrawal rights so that annual lapses fall within the 5-and-5 safe harbor, preserving gift tax neutrality while maintaining the beneficiary’s ongoing power. Where a larger right is desired, a “hanging power” can be used: the right does not lapse all at once, but “hangs” and lapses incrementally at the 5-and-5 rate each year until fully extinguished.

Estate Tax: §2041 Inclusion and the Intentional Basis Step-Up

A withdrawal right that constitutes a general power of appointment, one exercisable in favor of the beneficiary, the beneficiary’s estate, the beneficiary’s creditors, or the creditors of the beneficiary’s estate, causes the subject property to be included in the beneficiary’s gross estate under IRC §2041, whether or not the power is exercised.

Inclusion is often intentional. For a beneficiary whose estate is comfortably within the $15 million federal exemption, a standing withdrawal right deliberately drafted as a §2041 general power pulls the trust assets into the gross estate and obtains a fresh fair-market-value basis under IRC §1014 at death. The inclusion cost is zero or minimal, and the income tax savings from the step-up can be substantial, particularly for appreciated real estate, closely held business interests, or long-held securities with significant embedded gain.

Conversely, where inclusion is undesirable, the right must be carefully limited to avoid general power status, for example, by restricting the power to an ascertainable standard or limiting the class of permissible appointees to exclude the beneficiary’s estate and creditors.

Creditor Protection: The Majority Rule, Bankruptcy, and the Protective Jurisdictions

One of the most important, and most often underappreciated, features of withdrawal rights is their interaction with spendthrift trusts and asset protection law. The analysis turns on two questions: whether the trust is a third-party trust or a self-settled trust, and what state law governs.

The majority rule.  Most states treat a presently exercisable withdrawal right held by a third-party trust beneficiary as reachable by that beneficiary’s creditors during the exercise window, on the theory that an enforceable entitlement to demand a distribution is itself an attachable asset. Under this view, even a standard Crummey or 5-and-5 power creates a brief but real exposure window each time it arises; the exposure closes when the power lapses but reopens with each new contribution or annual renewal.

Bankruptcy treatment of unlapsed withdrawal rights. The bankruptcy overlay raises a related but distinct question: does an unlapsed withdrawal right that has not been disclaimed become property of the bankruptcy estate? Under 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1), the estate includes all legal and equitable interests of the debtor as of the petition date. Although the Bankruptcy Code excludes a debtor’s interest in a valid spendthrift trust to the extent the restriction is enforceable under applicable nonbankruptcy law, courts have treated an open withdrawal right differently from a protected beneficial interest in a spendthrift trust.

The relevant case law has generally been unfavorable to debtors. In Meoli v. Thrun (In re Frisch), Adversary Pro. No. 13-80072, Case No. DG 11-12290 (Bankr. W.D. Mich. June 26, 2013), the court held that the debtor’s withdrawal power effectively gave him the equivalent of complete ownership over the trust property subject to that power, rendering the spendthrift restriction ineffective as to those assets. The concern is that, once bankruptcy is filed, the trustee steps into the debtor-beneficiary’s shoes and may exercise any unlapsed withdrawal right that the debtor could have exercised as of the petition date, thereby bringing the withdrawable trust property into the estate.

The leading circuit-court decision points in the same direction. In In re Hoff, 644 F.3d 244 (5th Cir. 2011), Mary McConnell created the Terry L. Hoff Heritage Trust as a spendthrift trust for the sole benefit of her grandson, Terry Hoff. The trust included an exception to its spendthrift restrictions: after the settlor’s death, Hoff could withdraw specified portions of trust principal, one-third at age 30, one-half of the remaining principal at age 35, and all remaining principal at age 40. Hoff filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy at age 37 without having exercised any withdrawal rights. The Fifth Circuit held that Mary was the trust’s sole settlor; because she was still alive when Hoff turned 30, the age-30 withdrawal right never accrued, but because she died after Hoff’s 30th birthday and before his 35th birthday, the age-35 withdrawal right did accrue. Thus, even though Hoff had not exercised that right before filing bankruptcy, he remained entitled to withdraw one-half of the trust principal, calculated as of his 35th birthday. The bankruptcy trustee could therefore exercise that vested withdrawal right for the benefit of the estate.

Together, Frisch and Hoff illustrate the bankruptcy risk: an unexercised but vested withdrawal right may become property of the estate and may be exercised by the bankruptcy trustee. A remaining question is whether the result would change if the unlapsed withdrawal right could be exercised only with the consent of a non-adverse party. The issue would be whether such a consent requirement meaningfully limits the debtor’s control, or whether the right is still sufficiently within the debtor’s dominion to be treated as the practical equivalent of ownership for bankruptcy purposes.

The protective jurisdictions.  A significant and growing number of states have departed from the majority rule by statute, providing that an unexercised withdrawal power over a third-party trust does not expose trust assets to the holder’s creditors unless and until the power is actually exercised:

•        North Carolina: N.C. Gen. Stat. §36C-5-505(b)(1) provides that property subject to a power of withdrawal is reachable only when and to the extent the holder actually exercises the power, and §36C-5-505(b)(2) confirms that lapse, release, or waiver is not an exercise and does not cause the holder to become a settlor of the trust.
•        Delaware: Del. Code tit. 12, §3536(a)(4) and (c)(1) protect an unexercised power of withdrawal from creditor reach and confirm that lapse does not constitute an exercise.
•        Georgia: Ga. Code Ann. §53-12-83 provides that an unexercised withdrawal right is not treated as an asset of the beneficiary for creditor purposes, and lapse does not alter that result.
•        South Dakota: S.D. Laws §§55-1-24.2 and 55-1-26, and Wyoming: Wyo. Stat. §4-10-505.1, each have enacted comparable statutory protection for unexercised third-party trust withdrawal powers.

In these jurisdictions, a beneficiary may hold a broad, standing withdrawal right, including one that constitutes a §2041 general power for federal estate tax purposes, without exposing the trust corpus to creditor claims. Trust situs and governing-law selection is therefore a critical variable whenever a beneficiary will hold meaningful withdrawal authority: a power that creates unacceptable exposure in a majority-rule state may be entirely workable in a protective one.

Third-Party Trusts Versus Self-Settled Trusts

The protections described above apply exclusively to third-party trusts, created and funded by someone other than the powerholder, such as a parent’s trust for a child. The analysis is fundamentally different when the powerholder is also the settlor. A self-settled trust is treated under the law of most states as fully reachable by the settlor’s creditors regardless of spendthrift language, on the policy ground that one should not be able to place assets beyond creditors’ reach while retaining their benefit. A retained withdrawal right only strengthens the creditor’s position, because it is a legally enforceable right to obtain the assets.

Domestic Asset Protection Trust statutes in jurisdictions such as Alaska, Delaware, Nevada, and South Dakota provide a limited exception, permitting a settlor to remain a beneficiary of an irrevocable trust shielded from the settlor’s creditors, subject to fraudulent transfer limitations and a seasoning period. Critically, however, DAPT protection extends only to discretionary interests. A withdrawal right retained by the settlor will generally destroy the protection, because it converts the settlor’s interest from discretionary to enforceable. The DAPT and the retained withdrawal right are thus generally incompatible tools: the planner must choose one or the other depending on whether access or protection is the primary objective.

Disclaimers: The Flexibility Mechanism

Natalie Choate has highlighted qualified disclaimers as a mechanism for adding or removing withdrawal rights after the fact, illustrating that these powers are not merely drafting tools but dynamic planning levers. Under IRC §2518 and applicable state law, a qualified disclaimer is an irrevocable refusal to accept a property interest that, if properly made, is treated as if the disclaimant never received the interest; the disclaimed property passes as if the disclaimant had predeceased.

In the withdrawal-right context, a beneficiary may:

•        Disclaim the withdrawal right itself: eliminating prospective §2041 estate inclusion, terminating §678 grantor trust treatment, and surrendering the ability to compel distributions; or
•        Disclaim a beneficial interest so that property passes into a trust in which the disclaimant holds a withdrawal right, effectively adding withdrawal-right flexibility to an inherited arrangement that lacked it.

To qualify, the disclaimer must be made within nine months of the transfer creating the interest (or the beneficiary’s 21st birthday, if later), must be in writing and delivered to the transferor or legal representative, and the disclaimant must not have accepted any benefit of the interest. The strategic value is post-mortem restructuring: rather than forcing the settlor to predict future tax law, asset values, and beneficiary circumstances at the drafting stage, the instrument can preserve options to be evaluated when the inheritance is actually received, provided it creates an appropriate landing place for disclaimed interests.

Disclaiming to Preserve Dynasty Trust Status

One of the most consequential uses of the disclaimer is the beneficiary’s election to disclaim a withdrawal right entirely in order to preserve a trust’s fully GST-exempt, dynastic character. A §2041 general power causes estate inclusion, and estate inclusion in a GST-exempt trust creates two problems: the included assets are subject to estate tax in the powerholder’s estate, consuming exemption or generating tax; and assets that pass through a beneficiary’s estate lose their GST-exempt trajectory as to that generation, interrupting the perpetual transfer-tax-free compounding that is the dynasty trust’s hallmark. By disclaiming the power within the nine-month window, the beneficiary is treated as never having held it: the assets stay out of the gross estate, the settlor’s GST exemption allocation remains undisturbed, and the trust continues its dynastic course.

The election is not cost-free. The disclaiming beneficiary surrenders three benefits, each of which should be weighed explicitly:

•        At-will access.  After disclaimer, access to trust assets is entirely subject to the trustee’s discretion under the instrument’s distribution standard. The beneficiary can request a distribution but cannot compel one.
•        The §1014 basis step-up.  Removing the assets from the gross estate forfeits the fresh basis at the beneficiary’s death. For a long-horizon trust holding appreciating assets, the compounding of unrelieved embedded gain can become a substantial income tax burden for successor generations.
•        §678 grantor trust treatment.  Upon disclaimer, the trust becomes (or reverts to) a non-grantor trust taxed at compressed trust rates, a real ongoing cost for income-producing trusts.

The decision framework is a comparison of benefit sets. Disclaiming preserves the dynasty: intact GST exemption, transfer-tax-free compounding, and the full protective structure. Retaining preserves flexibility and income tax efficiency: at-will access, individual-rate taxation under §678, and the basis step-up. Neither answer is universally correct; the choice turns on the beneficiary’s circumstances, the asset composition, the size of the beneficiary’s own estate, and the relative weight placed on multigenerational preservation versus present access. For many families, the best strategy is not to choose at the drafting stage at all, but to preserve both alternatives and let a well-advised beneficiary elect within the nine-month window.

Practical Applications

The basis step-up trust.  A beneficiary who is elderly, infirm, or whose estate is well within the exemption is an ideal candidate for a standing withdrawal right sized as a §2041 general power. The assets obtain a stepped-up basis at death and pass to the next generation with reduced embedded gain. In the protective jurisdictions, the beneficiary holds this power without exposing the trust to creditors, making the strategy available without the asset protection tradeoff it would carry in majority-rule states.

Tax rate arbitrage.  A beneficiary in the 22% or 24% bracket holding a §678 withdrawal right causes trust income to be taxed at her lower individual rate, often generating meaningful annual savings without any distribution. The technique is most attractive when the trust produces substantial recurring income and is expected to continue for many years.

Creditor exposure calibration.  In majority-rule states, a beneficiary with professional liability exposure, a physician, attorney, or contractor, may prefer a time-limited annual (Crummey-style) right over a standing right, minimizing the exposure window, with careful 5-and-5 sizing as an additional protective discipline. In the protective jurisdictions, the statute largely eliminates the concern and a standing right can be used freely.

Post-disclaimer trust design.  Where an instrument was drafted before the beneficiary’s needs could be anticipated, a disclaimer into a sub-trust containing a withdrawal right can retrofit flexibility, but only if the instrument includes disclaimer destination provisions, a common drafting omission planners should correct prospectively.

The beneficiary who prefers outright ownership.  Not every beneficiary wants to inherit in trust. Trust administration imposes real burdens, separate accounts, annual accountings, trustee fees, fiduciary income tax returns, and decisions routed through a fiduciary. For a financially responsible beneficiary with no meaningful creditor exposure and stable family circumstances, these frictions may outweigh the protections. A withdrawal right sized to reach the full corpus gives that beneficiary a genuine exit: exercising the power collapses the trust and frees the assets from the administrative apparatus entirely. The tradeoffs, loss of creditor protection, increased marital property exposure if inherited assets are commingled, and full §2041 estate inclusion, are real, and the instrument should pair a full-corpus power with a mechanism (a trustee certification, letter of wishes, or formal beneficiary election) documenting the beneficiary’s informed awareness of the protections being surrendered.

The Blattmachr Framework: Withdrawal Rights Within an Inheritance Architecture

Jonathan Blattmachr, among the most influential estate planning theorists of the modern era, situates the withdrawal right within a broader architecture of protection, tax efficiency, and beneficiary development. Viewed through that lens, the withdrawal right is not merely a tax device but a choice-preserving mechanism.

Spendthrift trusts with nuptial conditions.  Jonathan has long advocated leaving inherited wealth in spendthrift trusts rather than outright, with distributions conditioned on the beneficiary’s execution of an adequate prenuptial or postnuptial agreement, addressing creditor risk and marital risk simultaneously, since commingling and transmutation erode the separate-property character of outright inheritances over time. The withdrawal right interacts with this structure in an important way: because the right is the beneficiary’s own power rather than a trustee distribution, the instrument should expressly state whether the nuptial condition applies to exercises of the withdrawal right or only to trustee-initiated distributions.

GST-exempt dynasty trusts.  A central theme in Blattmachr’s work is structuring trusts to be wholly GST-exempt so the same corpus passes generation to generation without a second layer of transfer tax, particularly in jurisdictions that have abolished the Rule Against Perpetuities. The withdrawal right is in direct tension with that objective: a full-corpus general power is incompatible with perpetual dynasty planning and should be reserved for situations where basis step-up dominates. Calibration is the answer, rights sized within the 5-and-5 safe harbor, or limited to non-general powers, preserve both flexibility and exemption.

Well-Being Trusts and Flexible Beneficiary Trusts.  Blattmachr has championed the Well-Being Trust, an irrevocable trust designed not merely to write checks but to fund financial literacy, mental health support, career development, and life-skills programs tied to the beneficiary’s development. With Mitchell Gans and others, he has also written extensively on the Flexible Beneficiary Trust, under which a beneficiary holds the economic equivalent of outright ownership, directing investments and controlling access through withdrawal rights or trustee removal powers, while the trust form preserves creditor protection. The §678 analysis is central: the withdrawal right makes the beneficiary the income tax owner and confers de facto control approximating outright ownership, without collapsing the protective structure.

The central theme: choice.  What emerges is a vision of the ideal instrument as one that holds assets in a fully GST-exempt spendthrift trust with a robust discretionary standard; conditions distributions on nuptial agreements where marital risk warrants; grants the beneficiary an appropriately sized withdrawal right conferring genuine access; sits in a protective jurisdiction so the unexercised right does not create creditor exposure; and includes robust disclaimer provisions. A beneficiary inheriting under such an instrument faces a genuine three-way choice: exercise the power and take the assets outright, accepting the creditor, marital, and estate inclusion consequences; hold the power unexercised and enjoy §678 ownership and (in protective jurisdictions) full creditor protection; or disclaim entirely in favor of perpetual multigenerational protection. No single choice is right for every beneficiary, the well-drafted instrument ensures all three remain available, and leaves the decision where it belongs: with the beneficiary, informed and advised, when the inheritance actually arrives.

Drafting Considerations

1.     Define the exercise window precisely.  An open-ended or perpetually renewable right sustains §2041 general power status and ongoing §678 treatment; annual windows with clear lapse provisions are generally preferable where inclusion is not desired.
2.     Size the right relative to 5-and-5  where gift tax neutrality on lapse is desired, and consider hanging powers for larger amounts.
3.     Reconcile the spendthrift clause.  Blanket spendthrift provisions may be read to conflict with withdrawal rights; the instrument should expressly address the relationship.
4.     Select situs deliberately.  Where a beneficiary will hold a standing right, governing law matters enormously; in majority-rule states, window-based rights and 5-and-5 sizing are essential protective disciplines.
5.     Address §678 expressly.  The instrument should specify whether grantor trust treatment is intended, with income tax provisions coordinated accordingly.
6.     Include disclaimer landing provisions.  Every irrevocable trust should specify where disclaimed interests and powers go and whether those destinations include sub-trusts with withdrawal rights.
7.     Watch the settlor-status trap in other states.  N.C. Gen. Stat. §36C-5-505(b)(2) expressly provides that a lapse or release does not cause the holder to become a settlor; planners drafting under the law of other states should confirm that comparable protection exists.

Conclusion

Withdrawal rights are among the most versatile tools in the irrevocable trust practitioner’s toolkit. Properly drafted, they generate income tax savings through §678 grantor trust treatment, produce intentional estate inclusion for basis step-up purposes, preserve annual exclusion eligibility, and can be calibrated to manage creditor exposure, with the creditor analysis depending critically on governing law and on the third-party/self-settled distinction. When combined with disclaimer planning, as both Blattmachr and Choate have recognized, the result is an instrument that does not force the beneficiary to choose between access and protection at the drafting stage, but preserves both options for an informed election when the inheritance actually arrives. The planner’s task is to draft for optionality: anticipate the disclaimer and provide landing provisions; size withdrawal rights with the 5-and-5 safe harbor and GST exemption preservation in mind; make the creditor and marital tradeoffs explicit for beneficiaries holding full-corpus powers; and coordinate tax and asset protection objectives across the full multigenerational arc of the trust’s expected life.

HOPE THIS HELPS YOU HELP OTHERS MAKE A POSITIVE DIFFERENCE!

Andy Strauss

CITE AS:

LISI Estate Planning Newsletter #3318 (July 22, 2026) at http://www.leimbergservices.com. Copyright © 2026 Leimberg Information Services, Inc. (LISI) Reproduction in Any Form or Forwarding to Any Person Prohibited - Without Express Permission. Our agreement with you does not allow you to use or upload content from LISI into any hardware, software, bot, or external application, including any use(s) for artificial intelligence technologies such as large language models, generative AI, machine learning or AI system. This newsletter is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information regarding the subject matter covered. It is provided with the understanding that LISI is not engaged in rendering legal, accounting, or other professional advice or services. If such advice is required, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Statements of fact or opinion are the responsibility of the authors and do not represent an opinion on the part of the officers or staff of LISI .

CITATIONS:

IRC §§678, 1014, 2041, 2514, 2514(e), 2518; N.C. Gen. Stat. §36C-5-505(b)(1)–(2); Del. Code tit. 12, §3536(a)(4), (c)(1); Ga. Code Ann. §53-12-83; S.D. Laws §§55-1-24.2 and 55-1-26; Wyo. Stat. §4-10-505.1; Crummey v. Commissioner, 397 F.2d 82 (9th Cir. 1968); Meoli v. Thrun (In re Frisch), Adversary Pro. No. 13-80072, Case No. DG 11-12290 (Bankr. W.D. Mich. June 26, 2013); In re Hoff, 644 F.3d 244 (5th Cir. 2011); 11 U.S.C. § 541(a)(1), (c)(2).