August 31, 2026 - Irrevocable Trust improvements, notes on Package Review sheets, and the Questionnaire for committed couples

For Washington and Oregon users

The Client Questionnaire now works properly for committed couples:

• Choosing "Not married, but in a committed relationship" now behaves like the married questionnaire and collects both people's answers. Both partners are asked the Personal Information, Health Care, Fiduciary Choices, Estate Planning Goals and Current Estate Plan questions, and the printed questionnaire shows a column for each partner. Previously the second partner was named and then nothing else about them was captured.
• Wording throughout now says "partner" rather than "spouse" where it applies, and questions read "have either of you" for a couple planning together.
• A new question, "Is your partner creating an estate plan with you?", replaces the old wording about including a partner's information. It now explains that answering No collapses the questionnaire to a single-person form, and that either way the partner can still be named as a beneficiary or decision-maker.

You can now annotate a Package Review sheet:

• + Add note drops a sticky note anywhere on the page, and you can drag it beside whatever it refers to.
• A new Attorney Notes section at the bottom takes your name, the date and any longer comments.
• Save a copy puts your notes into a new file you can reopen later or pass on.
• The new ? button explains how it all works. The generated content stays locked, so the sheet always matches the documents.
• The Gift List now appears on the sheet when you have selected one — both in the document checklist and in the distribution summary. It was previously left off even though the document itself generated correctly.

The Irrevocable Gift Trust had a thorough review, with corrections throughout:

• Powers of appointment now exclude the person holding them. Where the broadest class was selected, the beneficiary could appoint the property to themselves, while the clause described itself as a limited power. The beneficiary is now expressly excluded alongside their estate and their creditors, in the Gift Trust's dynasty exempt and non-exempt powers.
• A new "My/our descendants only" option lets the beneficiary appoint among the Trustor's descendants rather than their own. The existing option is now labelled "Beneficiary's descendants only" so the difference between the two is clear on the page.
• A power of appointment can no longer be exercised to discharge a legal support obligation of the person holding it. This appears as a new bullet in the Restrictions on Powers of Appointment paragraph.
• When two people create a Gift Trust together, the beneficiary's power of appointment now reads "our descendants" rather than "my descendants", and the list of people it cannot benefit reads consistently everywhere it appears.
• The distribution, trust purpose, residence and final distribution clauses now use the beneficiary's name throughout, instead of switching to "the Primary Beneficiary" mid-clause.
• The four Independent Trustee powers to grant, modify or withdraw a power of appointment now appear as numbered sub-points beneath the paragraph that introduces them, rather than continuing the main list alongside it. The paragraph that follows renumbers accordingly.
• Cover pages now show the attorney name, firm and address.
• The Independent Trustee definition now carries a working cross-reference to the Grantor Trust Powers article, and a definition of "GST Tax" has been added.
• The Situs paragraph no longer repeats "This power may be exercised any number of times." twice, and the Digital Assets paragraph no longer opens with a redundant sentence when the plan has no sub-trusts.
• The S corporation and digital assets paragraphs now read correctly for a single Trustor, the perpetuities period now runs from the date of the agreement, and several typos and citation inconsistencies have been corrected. Notary signature lines are drawn consistently throughout.

In the Irrevocable Trust interview:

• Each child now has an "Is this child a minor?" question, and adult children are offered as trustee options alongside adult grandchildren. Previously no child appeared in the trustee pickers at all.
• The question "Can the spouse remove a Trustee?" no longer appears for a Gift Trust. It had no effect there — answering Yes granted nothing.

Wills and Health Care documents:

• The Affidavit of Attesting Witnesses now prints on its own page with its own footer, numbered separately from the Will, and carries the same title in Washington and Oregon. In Oregon, the witness addresses entered on the Document Execution tab now print on both the witness signature lines and the affidavit.
• The Health Care Power of Attorney now reads "pain-relieving drugs" and "pain relief therapies" in the paragraph about relief from pain. Both previously printed as a single run-together word.

Estate Plan Summaries:

• The paragraph describing how the remaining assets are divided now reads "if a child or a child's descendant is under the age of 25" and "if any grandchild is under the age of 25", and no longer ends with a doubled full stop.

Elsewhere in the interview:

• Family relationships fill themselves in again. When you add someone related by blood to only one spouse, the other spouse's relationship is recorded for you — entering Haley's sister now also records her as Tyler's sister-in-law. It will not overwrite a relationship you typed yourself, and it no longer produces "-in-law" on its own or "brother-in-law-in-law". The Family Information and Additional People lists also stop showing "(NO RELATIONSHIP)" for someone whose relationship is recorded against the other spouse — they now read, for example, "Ashley Jean Miles (Hayley's sister)". "(NO RELATIONSHIP)" now appears only when no relationship is entered for either person.
• On the Tangible Personal Property tab, the itemized gift grid now appears only when both the Gift List document and the "Itemized Tangible Personal Property On Gift List" option are selected. Selecting the Gift List on its own was previously enough, so the grid appeared with the itemized option unticked. The Assemble Documents check no longer warns about empty or extra rows in that grid.

Washington only

• Washington Irrevocable Gift Trust documents now name the current statute. They refer to the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act (RCW 11.104B), rather than the Uniform Fiduciary Principal and Income Act — the earlier act that chapter replaced. Oregon documents are unchanged, because Oregon still has the Uniform Principal and Income Act.
• The Washington Will now spells the defined term WUCTA consistently. In the paragraph covering distributions to young or incapacitated beneficiaries, it appeared as WUCTA twice and WUTCA once within a single sentence.
• In the Estate Plan Summary, the Washington paragraph about gift statements now says a separate gift statement is incorporated into "your estate plan" rather than "your respective estate plans", which read as couple wording in a single-client summary.