What if the major asset of the estate is the house where the surviving spouse lives? Can the children force their remaining parent to sell the house so they can get their 1/4? What if the remaining assets are earmarked for the surviving spouse’s elder care? It seems there should be a way for an elderly parent to not have to worry that their unscrupulous children will raid the money/property they were planning on living off of.
And please, where is “Around here” ?
It’s interesting that the only quote from the will say:
In official documents obtained by Radar, Naomi made no mention of her daughters Wynonna or Ashley and rested all power with her husband of 33 years.
“I nominate and appoint my spouse, Larry Strickland, as Executor of my estate,” the document reads.“In the event my spouse ceases or fails to serve, then I nominate and appoint my brother-in-law, Reginald Strickland, and Daniel Kris Wiatr as Co-Executors. I direct that no bond shall be required of my Executor.”
Being named executor has nothing to do with the how the inheritance is distributed, only who is in charge of managing/distributing the estate. I’m wondering if either the reporter is an idiot who doesn’t want to look up the big words in the dictionary, or if they assumed everyone reading the article has no idea what an executor is.
As far as I understand it, if a person dies with a will, surviving spouses and children only have a claim for reasonable maintenance against the estate if they are not provided for in the will. Only in the case of intestacy do the child’s share/R250k provisions come into effect.
Of course there are ways to do that, assuming we are talking about adult children - you own the property in a way that it passes outside the estate ( jointly with the right of survivorship, for example). Or you leave the house you own separately to the children subject to a life estate for your spouse.
It’s not exactly accurate that there is no situation where the children get nothing - there’s always a way to do that . It’s just that apparently in Toxylon’s location , disinheriting children takes some planning regarding ownership , while in my location ( New York) it can be done through a will.
Oh, I know there are ways to do it in other locations, I was asking Toxylon specifically about his jurisdiction. And more specifically about intestate laws there, since they seem to automatically include shared children, which could easily screw over the surviving parent if the children are assholes.
Thanks to your post, I went ahead and read the article (foolishly, I had taken the headline at face value until now). You’re right, it looks like all we know is that Naomi named her husband as executor of her estate. The article even goes on to say that “the document did not state if either of Naomi’s two daughters were named as beneficiaries of any of her assets.”
At this point, really, there is no evidence at all that Naomi “cut her kids out of her will.” She may have left them a sizable amount, a paltry amount, or nothing at all. We just don’t know.
All we know is who the executor is, which has nothing to do with who inherits the estate. It’s really bad reporting.
You can always spend every last cent prior to dying.
From your other response it sounds like you are not in the US, so why would your country’s inheritance laws have any relevance to the topic of this thread?
Author of girl with dragon tatoo etc was Swedish. He had no will and never married his GF. His parents got the estate. GF went to court but I think she still got zero
Also a new Swedish author is writing books in the same series so I assume the GF is getting some of that money
FWIW, Naomi Judd lived in Tennessee. The intestate laws there state that in the absence of a will, the spouse gets the greater of 1/3 of the estate or a child’s share. Since there were 2 children, he’d have gotten 1/3. The website I found doesn’t specify if it matters whether the children are also the spouse’s children though.
That’s what my parents did when my dad passed away. This just seems like standard practice. My dad knew my mom was going to need money to live on, since it was clear she’d need to move into a retirement facility at some point in the next few years after he died.
All the other language they quote seems to be pretty much standard boilerplate for a will. Setting up and executor, and an alternate executor in case the first one dies or is incapacitated, is normal, as is giving that person control over how the estate is handled. That’s the whole point of an executor.
Seems like a lot of nothing. The only newsworthy bit seems to be that her daughter was upset by this, which, well, boohoo.
And note that even that comes down to this line from the original article:
RadarOnline.com has been told Wynonna is “upset” at her mother’s baffling decision as she was part of the duo The Judds and “believes she was a major force behind her mother’s success.”
“Has been told” ? That’s some pretty weasely reporting. They didn’t even say something like “sources closes to the family” or anything like that.
In most if not all states if 2 people die within 5 days it’s legally the same as if they died together. I know this because my stepmother died 3 days before my father. In my case it did not impact the wills. Not sure why that’s the law but it is.
Not my business but especially if your wife is not the mother of your children, leaving your children a token gift, a memento, or even just a letter might not be amiss. Intentional or not, there can be a perception of having been “cut out of a will” if the kids get absolutely zip. I’ve seen this tear families apart, sadly, I think through sheer thoughtlessness rather than malice.
I’m glad the headline is false, and hope the facts bear that out. Rich or not, Ashley and Wynonna would probably appreciate something, anything, that they knew their mother wanted them to have. Otherwise, it would not be hard for them to conclude she specifically wanted them to have nothing.
One reason is that it cuts down on administrative costs - otherwise you would first go through probate for the first person who dies and pay the executor ( usually based on a percentage of the value of the estate) and then pay the fees on the value of the second estate, which now includes the value of the first. I suspect that there’s also a bit of “what would most people want” especially since it also applies when there is no will*. For example, I die as the result of a car accident and everything goes to my husband. He was in the same accident and dies 15 minutes later and everything (including what he inherited from me) goes to his niece who is his only surviving relative. If he dies first everything ( including what I inherited from him) goes to my mother, who is my only surviving relative. I’m just guessing, but I suspect a lot of people wouldn’t want that if the was a relatively short period of time between the deaths.
* In fact, you can often change the simultaneous death provision through a will , for example by requiring someone to survive you by 30 days to inherit
We kids (4) were all young adults when my dad died. He was only 59, so my mom could have easily lived decades longer (and she did). We got nothing when my dad died and didn’t expect anything. When my mom died, her estate (what there was) was divided equally among us kids. My parents had moved to AZ when my dad died; my mom had moved back to CA when she died. Not that I think it made any difference.
No, seriously . . .people are saying!
When my aunt died intestate and never married the inheritance the lawyer said our state went: Spouse. If no spouse, evenly among the children. If no children, evenly among siblings. If any of the siblings were dead, their child(ren) split that siblings portion.
This was NYS a good 20 years ago.
Disposition of a person’s money and property depends on the will. I’ll stick my neck out and say that most married couples, if they each even HAVE a will, will leave everything to the surviving spouse.
If a person dies “intestate,” meaning, without a will, the laws of the State determine who gets what. Some States, it’s 50/50 spouse and kids. The kids can make the spouse liquidate property, so the proceeds can be divided.
Other States call for 1/3 to the spouse, 2/3 to the kids.
We had adopted my husband’s sister, and the attorney made a special point to instruct us that she had all rights of inheritance. And should we later have kids of our own, she would share equally any inheritance.
His sister went off the rails and provided us with all kinds of grief. I got Mr VOW to see the wisdom of a will, telling him if he were to die, she would get 2/3 of every little thing. (We lived in Wisconsin at the time.)
We have our own children now, who are grown with their own families. Mr VOW and I don’t have a lot, but we do have our house on our 36 acres in AZ. When Mr VOW had a heart attack in 2020, his sister found out and told others, “Good, they’re gonna die soon, and I want my inheritance.”
I have been nagging/begging/badgering Mr VOW that we need new wills to specifically exclude his sister from inheriting anything from us.
Although I might be so inclined to leave her the contents of the cat’s litter box.
~VOW
My parents had wills that left their estate to the surviving spouse, then split among the kids if the spouse was pre deceased. When my dad died, my mother got everything which is exactly as it should be. My siblings and I don’t think we are owed anything, we hope to inherit nothing and she lives a long life.
My mother did distribute some of my dad’s stuff - jewelry and clothing - to kids and grandkids, based on what they wanted as a memento. No one cares about the cash value.