In July, Anne Abernathy of Oklahoma committed suicide shortly after her own mother died of natural causes. She was apparently mentally disturbed in the last couple years of her life; neighbors were frightened of her habit of shining spotlights on them and screaming insults at them on a regular basis, etc.
Shortly before she died, she drafted a will that, among other things, left her $500,000 estate to the Miami relatives of Elian Gonzalez and the Amirault family of Massachusetts (the Amiraults had been convicted of child molestation at their day care center; the Oklahoma woman apparently felt they’d been wrongly accused). Not surprisingly, Ms. Abernathy’s relatives are contesting the will. A brief summary of the story can be found here.
Should the Gonzalezes and Amiraults surrender any claim to the Abernathy estate, given that they didn’t know her from a hole in the wall, and that by all reports she wasn’t in her right mind when she made her will?
What would you do if you found out that someone you never knew left YOU the money instead of their relatives? Would it make a difference to you if you thought the relatives were jerks (and perhaps undeserving of an inheritance)?
Should relatives have a “right” to an inheritance over complete strangers? (Note: this a separate issue from people leaving their estates to charitable organizations.)
For me, the only relevant issue was “did the deceased write the will while in sound mind and body”. If so, than that was their intent. If not, so be it.
Uh, wrong. Any legal document (Will, trust, contract) can be challenged on the ground that the person who signed it was legally incompetent at the time.
Sounds like you’ve bought into the scare tactics used by living trust salespeople who try to stampede people into buying expensive one-size-fits-all living trusts. Sure, a living trust can be a useful tool in the estate planning attorney’s arsenal, but buying one from your life insurance salesman or some other unqualified salesperson is usually a waste of money and can even end up costing your heirs a lot more money than necessary.
As long as the person is of sound mind, and didn’t write the will under any outside influences, I think that whomever the money is willed to is entitled to it.
If I truly felt that I should disinherit my relatives, I think that I ought to have the right to. It is (or will be, I’m currently broke) my money, and I should be able to dispose of it as I please. Therefore, the same goes for everyone else.
I don’t think there’s a dispute about what should happen when a person of sound mind makes a will - obviously, things should be dispensed as they requested, and damn the relatives if need be.
I guess the issue that I really wanted to get at (and didn’t say clearly before) is:
What if there is good reason to think that the person writing the will was NOT clearly of sound mind at the time? What if they just picked your name out of the phone book (say), and you had never heard of them before the executor knocked on your door and told you that you’d come into a healthy wad of cash? What then?
It would be tempting, but ultimately I would not feel right accepting such an inheritance. I certainly wouldn’t entertain the thought of a legal battle with the relatives to keep it. I’m amazed that the Gonzalez family is even spending any time looking through their old mail, trying to figure out whether Ms. Abernathy ever wrote them before - it sounds to me as though they would be willing to fight for their share. (To date, none of the reports mention what the Amiraults’ response has been to this.)
So, with the state of mind of the deceased in question, what would you do if you were named a beneficiary out of the blue, at the expense of the relatives?
If there were NO relatives, or the relatives did not contest the will, I’d keep the cash – no questions asked. And then maybe start up some charitable fund for the deceased’s past interests – like a scholarship fund for the dead guy’s alma mater or something. Or a Save The Dogzilla Checkbook fund…
If the relatives contested and thought they deserved something for nothing… Well, whatever, they can have it. I wouldn’t fight them since I would have had no clue the money was coming to me or anything.
If my parents pulled this kind of crap, I’d probably contest the will, kicking and screaming.
For some reason I have a strong feeling that the Gonzalez family will try to keep the money. They would all claim to be cousins of Anne and that it is their right to it.
