HEIR TIGHT

Posted By admin on October 19, 2012

This warning has nothing to do with my mother but everything to do with my sister.

When Susan died last August 25, she left behind a will that she had signed in 2005. Unfortunately, her attorney only has a conformed copy of the will (i.e. her “signature” was typed or printed.) Susan chose to take home her signed copy. I have no idea what happened then. She did not  file it with the Register of Wills for Montgomery County Maryland and it is not among her private papers, which she kept in a box under her bed until everything was put in storage a year ago, prior to her house being sold..

Maryland law permits the copy of a will to be admitted as the original under certain provisions. Her named executor (called a Personal Representative in Maryland) will need to petition the Orphans’ Court for Montgomery County to become the Personal Representative of the Estate and for the copy of the will (now in her lawyer’s file) to be admitted as the original without a court hearing.

However, those of us who are named in the will as beneficiaries must sign a consent form for this to happen. Without all our consents, a judicial probate hearing would take place  at some point after a public notice of it is published.  Until that time, the estate would remain closed. Though two of us have problems with Susan’s executor, we sent in our signed consents. I didn’t want to drag this out by not signing. It’s bad enough that Susan died.

Don’t let this happen to you or to anyone in your family.

©2012                                                                                                       Heir Tight

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Posted By admin on October 7, 2012

Big deal, you say. A Will is a Will is a Will.

Not so. All Wills are not the same. And if you insist that they are the same, I hope by day’s end, you will see how different they can be. Finish reading this page. I’m not going to go into the history of wills. I’ll leave that for you to read on your own time.

Right now, I want to reveal a mistake or two made by individuals who should have known better. This applies as much to the testator as it does to the attorney who drew up the will. The first story is about a modest estate. The second one is about a billionaire’s will.

A woman in New York City died, leaving her personal belongings, including her jewelry, to her two daughters. Both sisters wanted the same pair of earrings and neither one would agree to let the other have it. No matter how many times their mother’s Executor reminded them that the estate couldn’t be settled until one of them conceded to the other, neither one would budge. Close to a year passed before the sisters – who had not spoken to each other in over six months – agreed with the Executor’s suggestion to take one earring. A senseless loss of family over a personal item.

No matter how inconsequential something may seem to be by the person who is going to sign the will, it bears emphasizing that you be specific in your will. If you have children, you’ll know which one likes something in particular. Just make sure that your children know about your intents well in advance. That way, nobody has a legal complaint later.

My mother’s original will left her estate in equal proportions to her four children. She even outlined in her will how we were to divide her furnishings, jewelry, and other personal effects. We were to draw a number from a hat and take turns choosing what we would like. In the end, if one or more of us seemed to have less in total equal value than another, the discrepancy would be rectified through money realized when her Sea Island Georgia ouse was sold.

When financier J. Paul Getty died in 1976, he created headaches of enormous size for his heirs, starting with his son Gordon who was sole trustee. Getty left a $4 billion estate in trust with orders that it only invest in federal notes from seven countries (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Switzerland, Canada, Great Britain, and the U. S.) and that no more than twenty-five percent could be invested in any one country.

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Posted By admin on October 2, 2012

Why am I writing this blog? In the hope that natural curiosity will keep you reading beyond these opening lines so that you and your family never go through what happened to us.

In the immediate days following Mother’s death, my sister Susan tried to get information from our older brother, the surprising sole executor of Mother’s estate. (I say “surprising” because Mother had vowed time and again  never to remove Trust Company of Georgia as co-executor.)

When Bobby refused to answer Susan’s questions and, at one point, even threatened to revoke her quarter share of the estate – yes, he really said that, Susan wrote him that we were all new to this, so of course we would have questions. Susan lived in Maryland and when she showed her letter to a lawyer friend before she mailed it, he advised her to tear it up and retain one of three Atlanta attorneys who specialize in estates.

A week later, Susan called me in East Hampton and told me to get a lawyer.  Without knowing anything new, I disagreed because I’d always known that my quarter share would be held in trust. But I soon learned she was right.

When Bobby visited me late July, he asked me to sign a document after he told me that Susan had signed her copy, the day before. I had no reason to doubt him but when I mentioned this to Susan in December, she didn’t know what I was talking about. She hadn’t seen Bobby since before Easter and he hadn’t mailed her any paper to sign.

A New York attorney shocked me when he brushed aside my reason for calling. He said that there was “nothing unusual” about our pending lawsuit against the executor of Mother’s estate. Nothing unusual.

Another lawyer explained why it is so common: Parents who have more than child “toss the golden apple of discord into the banquet” when they name one child sole executor of their Last Will & Testament. This singular role gives the unethical child legal means to manipulate it.

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