The Problem With Executing Two Successive Wills

Ms. Haguette Clark

...is that your family will fight over the money in your estate.  This appears to be happening right now in New York to the deceased multimillionairess Huguette Clark.

The problem with this estate arose, as is so often the case, toward the end of the decedent's life.  Ms. Clark, the daughter of copper magnate and Montana Senator, William Andrews Clark, and a private person to begin with, lived the last decades of her life in a New York hospital surrounded by her care-providers but largely estranged from her distant relatives.

In 2005, Clark executed two successive wills within six weeks.  The first will was garden-variety, leaving the bulk of her estimated $300 million dollar estate to her surviving albeit distant family members; a collection of grandnieces, grandnephews, great-grandnieces and great-grandnephews, all of whom apparently have standing as heirs-at-law in New York to challenge the probated will.

In the suspicious second will, hastily executed just 6-weeks after the first, Ms. Clark apparently had a sudden and massive change of heart, leaving the bulk of her estate to her lawyer, her accountant, and her care provider, and establishing a foundation for the arts with generous funding.  The second will contains the following language of disinheritance:

I intentionally make no provision in this may Last Will Testament for any members of my family, whether on my paternal or maternal side, having had minimal contacts with them over the years. The persons and institution named herein as beneficiaries of my Estate are the true objects of my bounty.

The collection of 20 distant relatives are not taking this second will sitting down; they have lawyered-up, Manhattan style.  Discovery in the case, largely consisting of desperate attempts by the family member litigants to prove their paper thin contacts with the wealthy decedent, has been completed and a jury is scheduled to be selected tomorrow.

Greed abounds on both sides of the caption in this case.  Did Ms. Clark really intend to disinherit her family members in favor of her lawyer and accountant?  What was the nature of the contact between Ms. Clark and her distant relatives?  Did she even know who they were?

The moral of this tale is to make a viable well-thought-out estate plan early in life.  As things in your life change, and perhaps you acquire a larger estate, amendments to your estate plan can be executed.

All too often, we see professionals take advantage of their elderly clients, putting themselves in a position of financial gain through undue influence.

Contact our law firm for a free estate planning consult and you can avoid the type of litigation that now threatens to define Ms. Clark's once proud legacy.

www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com

Heirs-at-Law Discovered via Facebook

Recently at our law firm, we have had a few cases where personal representatives and other fiduciaries have located heirs-at-law through Facebook.  In some of these cases, nothing was known about the heirs and resources were about to be expended with an expert skip-tracer.

Alert family members were tipped off and/or obtained information through their FB friends or "friends-of-friends".  In turn, this provided the probate lawyers of our firm with some basic contact information.

Under the applicable court rules, lawyers are still limited to "old school" methods of transmitting messages and documents; not even email is permissible under the court rules.  Informally,  however, modern practitioners are utilizing a variety of social media and data directories to locate heirs.

Once the interested parties are identified, the process of identifying the various claims and other issues of probate estate administration can commence.

Slowly, probate courts across the country are implementing an electronic infrastructure and promulgating electronic filing standards.  Both Wayne and Oakland County Probate Courts have made great strides in this area.

www.clarkstonlegal.com
info@clarkstonlegal.com

Estate Planning Does Not Have to Cause Anxiety

As noted in a recent WSJ article, "estate planning" seems to cause anxiety in many elderly people.  It does not need to be so.

Many people are put off by the time it takes to gather the information necessary to putting together a good estate plan; it is akin to gathering information to complete a refinance transaction on your house.  Also, there is the expense of the estate planning lawyer.

In general, people do not like to contemplate things like the death of a loved one; or incapacity, or mental illness.  Also, estate planning often involves awkward conversations with family members; some may be selected, or nominated to serve in a fiduciary capacity while others are not.

These factors should not discourage you, however, from putting together some plan.  When you make an estate plan of any kind, even one from a document package you find on the Internet, you are at least retaining some control over the process.

Just about anything is better than no plan at all.  Dying intestate places your estate directly into the probate process, with your assets devolving to your "heirs at law" or worse, escheating to the state if you have no heirs.

It is never too early, or too late to seek out advice for the development of your estate plan.  Call us for a free legal consultation.

www.clarkstonlegal.com

info@clarkstonlegal.com