Suppose Rich Old Man marries Young Floozy. He has several children from prior marriage who hate YF – they think she’s a gold-digger, and a threat to their inheritances.
After a couple years of increasingly unblissful marriage, ROM realizes that his kids were right, and decides to divorce YF. The first step he takes is to draw up a new will, leaving YF a pair of cubic zirconium earrings (the size of her heart and just as valuable, it says) and with all the rest split evenly between the, let’s say, four kids. This will is drawn up, signed, witness, filed --whatever, all necessary steps properly performed.
The next day YF invites him to join her on a ‘no hard feelings’ last sail. ROM mentions to someone he plans to go.
A few days later, calls start going back and forth: ROM is missing appointments, and on investigation they discover he hasn’t been seen since leaving his private club the morning of the day he was supposed to go sailing with YF.
Foul play is suspected, but the investigation goes nowhere: YF says she invited ROM to a sail, but he never showed up, so she went sailing alone. There’s no witness to say different, no evidence of foul play on the boat. Maybe he developed amnesia and wandered away, she suggests. Maybe he’s found god and is off selling flowers for some guru. Whatever. She’s ‘sure’ he’s fine and is certainly old enough to decide for himself where he goes and when.
The children are convinced YF did the old man in and dumped the body at sea – but there’s simply no evidence.
Now, my question is: Is there anything to keep YF from enjoying herself by spending all of ROM’s estate? According to the vague info gleaned from tv/movies, someone has to be missing for seven years before they can be declared dead. In the meantime, isn’t YF presumed to still be his wife, and therefore in control of the money?
Now it’s seven years later, and the children get ROM declared dead. What is the ‘date of death’? The date he was last seen, that is, seven years earlier, when there was a multiimillion dollar estate and thus YF is legally bound to cough the money up to be divided as dictated by the will? Or is the ‘date of death’ when the declaration is made, and since by that point YF had spent all the money, each kid is now due exactly 1/4 of nothing?
Suppose YF didn’t just consume the money. Suppose she used it to buy property, jewels, valuable artworks, etc. Could the children seize them, in either case? Are they part of ‘his estate’ even though he never laid eyes on them?
What if she converted ROM’s estate into cash and set up some sort of trust that gives it all to charity – but until she dies she draws some fabulous salary to serve as its trustee. Could she continue to enjoy ROM’s money that way while thumbing her nose at the children?