Spring 2025
Professor(s):
Hilary Reed (CLINICAL FACULTY [405(b)])
Credits: 3
Course Areas: Real Property, Trusts and Estates
Time: 10:30a-12:00p TTH Location: 310
Course Outline: If UH mandates during this term that alternate delivery of courses is required, as occurred during Spring of 2020, please note that this course may be delivered via distance education and/or primarily electronic interaction.
This course covers the law and policy of the two main legal vehicles for controlling the posthumous distribution of one’s property: wills and trusts. Specific coverage includes introductory matters (freedom of disposition and the mechanics of succession); intestate succession (basic structure, transfers to children, and bars to succession); the law of wills (formalities, contests, and construction); the law of trusts (creation, administration, alienation, appointment powers, and duration); and related issues (other will substitutes, planning for incapacity, and limits on freedom of disposition).
This course’s learning outcomes are to gain a strong understanding of common law principles governing wills and trusts, corollary aspects of both the Uniform Probate Code and relevant Texas state law, and theoretical and policy issues relating to the posthumous disposition of property.
Course Syllabus: Syllabus
Course Notes: (Face-to-Face) The UH registration system instruction mode for this course is listed in parenthesis. For this instruction mode, instructors and students are expected to normally be physically present in the classroom. If the course has a final examination, it will be in a classroom requiring your physical presence. Other assessment, such as a mid-term exam, may also be in a classroom. Whether this instructor will offer “remote presence” (starting a zoom meeting from the podium computer to enable student remote access on an occasional basis) for part or all of the semester is not known, but students should not rely on an expectation that remote presence will be available.
Quota=48
Prerequisites:
First Day Assignments:
Final Exam Schedule: 5/8/2025 9-12pm
This course will have:
Exam:
Paper:
Satisfies Senior Upper Level Writing Requirement: No
Experiential Course Type: No
Bar Course: Important (MEE)
DistanceEd ABA: No
Pass-Fail Student Election: Available
Course Materials
Book(s) Required
Course Materials: Sitkoff and Dukeminier, Wills, Trusts, and Estates (11th Edition). ISBN-13: 978-1543824469 ISBN-10: 1543824463
