[quote]
…as well as two of four grandchildren from her late son Jay Panzirer — **so long as they visit their father’s grave site once each calendar year.
Otherwise, she wrote, neither will get a penny of the $5 million she left for each.**
(Bolding mine)
What I don’t get is, how does that parse out? Do they have to wait for a number of years, proving they went to the grave, before they get a partial payment, or get X amount every year at the gate to the cemetery, or do they get all the money, but if they miss a yearly visit they have to give it all back to her attorneys, or do their heirs collect after they’ve died, having gone to the grave once a year?
It was intended to be hurtful. When else is she going to get the chance?
I personally don’t have any relatives that I’d want to exclude from my will, but I know plenty of people who would want to purposely exclude people from their wills, and put me in the camp of people who have no problem with that. Since we have no idea what went on between the QoM and her grandkids we don’t know if she was justified or not. But it’s her call, and I can’t fault her for making that call.
She has a perfect right to be petty and bitchy. IMO, that is not the same thing as saying she isn’t being petty and bitchy.
Sure, there may be justification for it. Doesn’t that go for any kind of spiteful, mean, petty or bitchy action?
Like everyone else here, I know squat about her grandkids. However, given what we know about her overall bitchiness on other occasions, it seems that, absent other knowledge, it is a reasonable working assumption she’s acting in character here.
Cheesesteak touched on this, but I was curious as well so I figured I’d share what I read here and here.
The will (most likely) won’t give the money directly to the dog, but rather the money goes to a trust; the trust document can specify what happens to the money when the dog dies - or, if it doesn’t, it goes to to the “residuary estate”, which happens to be the Helmsley charitable trust. (Generally speaking, the “residuary estate” is what comes at the end, and begins “the remainder of my estate goes to…”).
FYI - I’m not a lawyer, and if you’re planning on killing and impersonating a pooch for profit, you should talk to an attorney.
“Bitchy” would imply that she did something to harm someone else. She did nothing of the kind. She used the vast majority of her fortune to help other people. To me, it just doesn’t parse whatsoever to call that “bitchy.” The opinion you expressed upthread that people have some moral imperative to give money to greedy relatives before they give it to charity is also very puzzling to me. You didn’t really give an explanation for that. Would you care to elaborate? Hypothetically, f I have a choice between leaving a million dollars to tsunami victims or to a worthless, alcoholic, wife-beating grandson, you’re saying t would be immoral and “bitchy” for me to try to do some good with that money rather than give it to an asshole?
On the subject of charity, I am of the opinion that there are two aspects to consider: the amount of good done by the charity, and the spirit in which it is given. The highest degree of charity is to give in order to help others (to help themselves), not out of a sense of self-aggrandizement. I partly agree with Maimonedes on this, though I am not of his religious beliefs and do not believe that his eight degrees of charity perfectly capture my own opinions on the matter.
Now, we have no idea what good works this charity is doing, so we cannot comment on the first aspect. Assume for the purpose of discussion that the charity at issue is doing good works.
However, in my opinion it would appear very likely that the spirit in which the money was given was at least partly a negative or spiteful one - to keep money out of the hands of her (undeserving) family, and self-aggrandizement (the charity is named after her and her husband). This is a determination quite independant of the good done by the charity.
Take for example this situation: at Christmas, a family is giving out presents; granny gives a lump of coal to grandson, then loudly announces that the money she saved in not giving her grandson a present is to go to the “Grandma X fund” to do unspecified “charitable work”. It would seem that the purpose of establishing such a charity is two-fold: to act spitefully towards her grandson for some real or imagined offence; and to aggrandize herself, by creating a fund named after her, and to demonstrate to everyone what a good person she is.
Now, it may also (or even primarily) have in mind actually doing good works - but the circumstances of its endowment make it appear that this purpose is secondary.
That merely addresses the issue of “charity”, and leaving aside the matter of endowing her dog and her tomb, which strike me as even more obviously bitchy, spiteful and selfish.
Now, all that being said, I’ve stated before that the grandkids have no moral entitlement to any money. This isn’t about their rights, it is about her choices. One can be IMO “bitchy” and “spiteful” even when doing something it is perfectly within your right to do - the opposite of “mean”, “bitchy” and “spiteful” is not “dutiful”, but something like “gracious” (that is, doing good where not required by some sort of duty, and doing it in a manner that unselfish and positive). So I disagree with your first sentence - indeed, this is a sort of paradigm case for the opposite proposition.
Just chiming in here. I think family is one of the most important things to anyone. If it was me, I’d leave millions each to every member of my family I could find, and the dog (kinda weird but I love my animals.)
Then I’d leave a buttload to charity too.
It is her money and all, it’s just sad to me that anyone, in death, would pit the two grandchildren who got money against the two who didn’t. And all 4 recognized less than the damn dog.
Pathetic and inflammatory. The last parting shots of a sad, mean woman.
I guess I just don’t get this inherent obligation to family under any circumstances thing.
Sure, she’s a known bitch and may just be acting the part- I completely accept that’s an incredibly likely scenario.
But what if her two grand kids are awful? What if she caught them stealing from her sometime? What if they are on drugs? What if they threw away their lives, didn’t go to college, and do nothing but live off of family money (something she perhaps found to be utterly unacceptable)? There are about a million scenarios that would completely justify cutting particular family members out of the will.
I just am amazed that so many here are saying family should get money, no matter what.
In my defense, our family, both sides, get along very well. Like no other family I have heard of. I just think family comes first. Blood is thicker than water.
ETA: Even if there was one member who was… less than deserving, I wouldn’t take the rude action of singling them out against the whole rest of the family. Unless they were like a serial killer…
Since you are so fortunate, I wouldn’t make judgments about how other people interact with their families until you’ve stood in their shoes. When you’ve watched a family pick each other apart, use each other, take advantage of each other and abuse each other, and been part of it, you may feel differently.
Once again, in my view the issue is not the “rights” of the grandkids to get cash, but the motives involved in granny bestowing (or withholding) cash.
Leaving money to her dog, to upkeep her tomb, and to some unspecified-object fund named after herself, all while disinheriting her grandkids, is simply ungracious and bitchy - even though it is within her rights to do so, and the grandkids have no moral claim to cash just because they are related to her.
Given that the rest of her life is hardly an example of grace, I’m not surprised.
Look for example at the behests she did bestow on relations - ‘you get cash but only if you accept humiliating conditions, like that you are my dog’s servant’ (my paraphrase). Can’t see any possible way of justifying that sort of behaviour.
Hey, even the grandkids who didn’t offend her got less than half as much as the dog. That’s gotta hurt.
Actually, I feel worst for the chauffeur. He had to take shit from her every damn day, and only got $100K.
And I’ve done a fair amount of web searching, and can’t find out anything about what their charitable trust does. I do see references to 2 large cash grants to hospitals in the past few years, but nothing at all about what their donating mission/policy is.
For all we know, it could be about helping cash-strapped real estate developers.
This is a woman who controlled a lot of money, it was hers to dispense as she chose both before and after her death. As far as we know she COULD have already given the other grand children their “inheritance”. I have heard of but can’t cite people being given an amount or property equal to the inheritance before hand.
I have also heard of people who tried to control thier offspring with thier proposed in heritance and the offspring declaring they want no part of the money in order to make their own way.
I’m very much in favor of heavy inheritance taxes of bequests over $1 million, for several reasons. Among them-
1- it tampers with “natural selection” by giving ridiculously unfair advantages to a privileged few who could not make it for themselves (as evidenced by the fact that if they could they would)
2- Paris Hilton- nuff said
3- No able bodied person should be allowed to live off of money they did not work for
4- Nobody ever left me $1 million.
As far as how the $2,800 per day in dog care is to be spent, my guess would be that Pwecious’s penthouse is to be retained so he doesn’t have to move. Leona left a good chunk of the money to her brother upon the dog’s death, incidentally. (25 years ago when her only son died she had her daughter-in-law and grandson evicted; it’s still not known what that was about- the d-i-l claims to not have a clue and says legal bills fighting her mother-in-law left her without a dime, but I’m guessing there’s a bit more to the story- even Livia Soprano wouldn’t do that to somebody for absolutely no reason or personal gain.)
The link goes to a NYTimes article (free registration may be required), and in that article there is a link to a pdf of the actual text of the will. I don’t think I can link directly to the pdf.
A couple of points:
The 2 grandkids getting money are each getting $5M in cash PLUS $5M in trust.
There is also a brother getting $15M is cash and trust (she had some family she cared about).
The “dog’s” $12M is going to a trust established in 2005. While the presumption may be that that trust benefits the dog since the dog is mentioned in that paragraph of the will, I would like to see something that confirms this. That trust may have other provisions, not all of which relate to the dog. If the trust does provide for the dog, it also probably provides for the distribution of the remainder at the dog’s death. The dog itself is willed to her brother.
There is plenty more weirdness where the stuff mentioned came from–she is to be buried with her wedding ring on and no one is to ever remove it from her finger, her mausoleum is to be powerwashed once a year and the grandsons are to visit Dad’s tomb (preferably on March 31, dod), except in cases of physical or mental disability.
All personal effects are to be sold–no memorials there.
So, carry on–just thought the will itself might be of interest.
