AMENDMENTS TO UNIFORM PROBATE CODE文档.doc

AMENDMENTS TO UNIFORM PROBATE CODE Approved by the Executive Committee of the National Conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws, January 12, 2008 Elective Share PART 2 ELECTIVE SHARE OF SURVIVING SPOUSE General Comment The elective share of the surviving spouse was fundamentally revised in 1990 and was reorganized and clarified in 1993 and 2008. The main purpose of the revisions is to bring elective-share law into line with the contemporary view of marriage as an economic partnership. The economic partnership theory of marriage is already implemented under the equitable-distribution system applied in both the common-law and community-property states when a marriage ends in divorce. When a marriage ends in death, that theory is also already implemented under the community-property system and under the system promulgated in the Uniform Model Marital Property Act. In the common-law states, however, elective-share law has not caught up to the partnership theory of marriage. The general effect of implementing the partnership theory in elective-share law is to increase the entitlement of a surviving spouse in a long-term marriage in cases in which the marital assets were disproportionately titled in the decedent(s name; and to decrease or even eliminate the entitlement of a surviving spouse in a long-term marriage in cases in which the marital assets were more or less equally titled or disproportionately titled in the surviving spouse(s name. A further general effect is to decrease or even eliminate the entitlement of a surviving spouse in a short-term, later-in-life marriage (typically a post-widowhood remarriage) in which neither spouse contributed much, if anything, to the acquisition of the other(s wealth, except that a special supplemental elective-share amount is provided in cases in which the surviving spouse would otherwise be left without sufficient funds for support. The Partnership Theory of Marriage The partnership theory of marriage, sometimes also