Posted on 01/16/2016 11:13:45 AM PST by TNoldman
I am seeking guidance on a personal issue related to a Family Will that my wife and I are about to prepare.
We have been married for 28 years and we are 79 and 81 YO. My wife has a Daughter and a Son by a previous marriage and I have 4 Sons by a previous marriage.
Just last week we Honored the passing of my Wife's Son of 56.
Now we need to revise our Wills to reflect this loss and perhaps some other changes.
THE SIGNIFICANT ISSUE is how we handle the division of our Assets after we both pass. One of my Son's has chosen to disassociate himself from all Family members. I have not had contact with him in 29 years. (He was 20 YO when his Mother and I Divorced).
In the past we have had Wills that divided our Assets equally among our 6 children. We plan to give the portion that would have gone to our Son that just passed to his 3 children. Our dilemma is how to deal with the one Son who has chosen to exclude us from his life.
Do we exclude him totally, give him a token amount or treat him to an equal share?
Please feel free to comment with regard to all aspects of emotions, such as : Forgiveness, Punishment, Fairness and etc.
As to whether you should disown, that's a personal decision. Remember that doing so could create huge problems for your other heirs. Do you really want to put them through some protracted litigation? I've seen these lawsuits. They drag on for years and the results are never pretty.
I have a fair amount of expertise in this area. Probably way more than most other posters who have offered their opinions here.
My opinion:
Get a good lawyer who specializes in Wills and Trusts.
Just like pretty much everyone else here has said.
Don’t go for the “$499 and all you can eat” television hucksters. Your local county Bar Association is a reasonable place to go to a referral if you don’t know where else to start.
And don’t wait.
If you wish, you could further explain your decision and your feelings by providing a sealed, private letter to be given to your estranged son after your passing. I urge that whatever you do, you not take the will and any private letter as an opportunity to wound, cast blame, or offer justification for any ill will you may feel toward your son.
I suggest that if you leave a private letter for your estranged son, that you also leave private letters expressing your love for your other children. You do not want them feeling slighted.
It sounds as if you do not have a Living Trust set up. A Living Trust will allow you to avoid probate courts. A simple will won’t. Get all of your assets into the Trust. Then you can leave instructions to successor trustee or trustees. Also, if one of you passes first, then the trust will split into two. One for the survivor, and the marriage trust that can also be used to support the survivor. We are so glad that both our mothers did this for us. It made it so much easier to handle the estates.
Interesting; a Spaniard described to me how at the time of one parent’s death, half the assets went to the surviving spouse while the other half was divided amongst the children. That could cause some headaches/hardship...
1: You are doing the wrong thing asking this question in a general forum. I say that with perfect certainty.
2: There is absolutely no way to do what you want (and I don’t know or care what that is) without hiring and consulting with a SKILLED ESTATE attorney IN YOUR STATE. Not “an attorney”. An ESTATE attorney. Get references and check the daylights out of his/her credentials. The fact that whatever form your existing will (if any) or trust (if any) seems not to accomodate this turn of events is proof positive that it is insufficient and not properly drawn. Period.
3: Do not cheap out. Do not use LegalZoom or PPD Legal Service for this.
This is the clearest case there will ever be that you, who have done this zero times or one time, or think that you have, seek to produce a specific result in a very, very complex hierarchy of laws and statutes that is VERY sensitive to precise wordings and orders of occurrences and dates and how real estate titles were taken and whether divorces are final and a dozen other details that are beyond your knowledge.
Please stop thinking of this as a do it yourself project. It’s not.
“”I voted for Obama twice” Isn’t that special.”
Huh? Who said that I voted for 0bemba?
I can assure you, sir, that I am farther to the right than you! ;-)
“Interesting; a Spaniard described to me how at the time of one parent’s death, half the assets went to the surviving spouse while the other half was divided amongst the children. That could cause some headaches/hardship...”
Exactly. The laws of Louisiana are based upon Napoleonic law with Spanish influence.
DO NOT SIGN A LIVING WILL. You would be authorizing some doctor to kill you because he thinks that's what you want. You really have no idea now what you will want when you're faced with a serious or life-threatening illness. Don't try to outguess yourself.
Sign a DURABLE POWER OF ATTORNEY FOR MEDICAL CARE, appointing some trusted person with the authority to make medical decisions for you when you can't make them for yourself.
My wife and I have signed DPAMC, each for the other.
Laws differ from state to state. Consult an attorney for the proper DPAMC for your state.
Do not EVER take legal advice from the Internet. At least if a professional lawyer gives you crap advice, you can ruin his career, so they have more of an incentive to be correct.
Get a living trust established. Wills would be part of that trust. If you just have ordinary wills which go through probate, your estate will be tied up for months and the probate fees will take a big bite. See a good estate planning attorney.
I am dumfounded by the number of people that come to a political web sight and ask strangers for advise on financial,personal and legal matters.
Hire a good estate attny,YESTERDAY
I think, because their are some very intelligent people on Free Republic that have good advice.
I believe you want advice on what to do with your son.
Make contact with him. Extend the peace branch, offer/ask for forgiveness as appropriate.
After your conservation is concluded, you should know what to do with your will. And you should have peace in your heart knowing you are not the cause for the continuation of any broken relationship.
Huh ?
.
The will is insignificant compared to the estrangement. If you have done everything you can to patch it and it hasn’t worked, I would leave him an equal share and hope it makes him feel ashamed of his behavior.
Yeah I suck like that.
Thats all well and good but NOT the place to go for guidance on serious estate matters
My advise as others in the same vain was the best.
Definitely. Not all lawyers are good. As a matter of fact, some are horrible. Shop around, and see if they have a long history of specializing in Wills and Trusts. My wife and I have separate Trusts and feel good about them. My wife is in charge of her mother's affairs, and we've been fighting off legal challenges by a couple of her siblings. All because a lousy lawyer created her mother's original trust and left ambiguities in it and several amendments. Our lawyer managed to fend off the siblings lawyers but it cost two years of fighting within the family. If my wife's mom passes (she's 91 now, in assisted living), we expect legal challenges. We have found we are not alone; many large families have fights regarding distribution of assets and how they're managed.
I agree .. find a reputable lawyer who can help you design a will - according to WHAT YOU AND YOUR WIFE WANT .. and not what the lawyer says you should want.
If you interview lawyers .. just be willing to walk away if you don’t think they know what they’re talking about.
Keep in mind, that dependent of state law and the size of your estate, anyone can challenge a will.
Chances are it will not happen though.
It's your call, you have the wheel.
As I wrote. The original poster should ignore every piece of advice on this thread that does not start with “see a professional.”
Your description of a living will is, at best, idiotic. At worst, well...your response is the worst.
You realize of course that a living will or advanced directive can (and in many cases) say—Do everything to keep me alive forever using every resource available now or in the future.
So, please keep your silly comments to yourself unless you know what you are talking about.
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