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candystripper -> RE: Will McCain Be Debt-Ridden After the Election? (11/1/2008 7:25:31 PM)
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KatyLied, while there may be no obligation to leave anything to anyone, if you know you have more wealth than you can consume during your own lifetime, you are planning to leave something to someone. No will? Then your estate will be probated, with your assets being parceled out among your relatives in accordsance to state law.
Let me give you an example: client comes in with wife number two. They both have the hating on the son-in-law thing going on, and what they want to do is disinherit the daughter and grand UMs and leave everything to the wife (who is much younger and who has been the wife only a brief time) with the idea that the wife will parcel out assets to the daughter and grand UMs and thereby prevent the son-in-law from ever 'getting a dime'.
Well, so we talk. I explain that inherited assets are not divvided up in a divorce; I offer several trust devices for the benefit of the daughter and the grand UMs, but no joy.
The estate was worth millions because the husband had worked a farm all his life and paid it off and urban sprawl had driven up the value of the raw land. Doubtless the first wife and the daughter also worked that land.
Eventually I just told them I didn't think I was the right lawyer for them. Maybe they both really did hate the son-in-law to such a degree that they would rather the daughter and the grand UMs not get a dime either, or maybe the husband didn't trust me as much as he did wife number two and she had evil designs on his money. I couldn't tell, didn't care; wasn't drafting what they said they wanted.
candystripper [sm=pole.gif]
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