Tommy Sherman sent me the following observations via email, and gave me permission to share them with you:
Several years ago an old widower I knew of died leaving a very extensive and historic gun collection to his only child, a daughter. She had a 13-year-old-son that understood the value of the guns and that some of them were family hand me downs. Despite frantic begging by the grandson to keep the collection, the daughter was having none of it. She unloaded the whole lot for pennies on the dollar to the first one who could write her a check. She then quickly spent it on "Stalin's baubles" (hats & shoes).
Most wills are not worth the paper they are written on. Several years ago a friend at church died and his widow called me to come look at his guns and see if I wanted to buy them. He had less than 10 as I remember. She mentioned that in his will he had detailed out to which relatives he wanted each gun to go to, but that she wasn't going to honor his request and was just going to sell them. I told her she needed to honor the request of the man she loved and lived with for all those years and then I left. I never did hear what she finally did, and who would be willing to contest a widow unless it was a big lot of items? In all probability none of his family knew what was in his will. If at all possible one needs to get things where they want them before one expires. The ones that involve their family members in shooting & self defense don't seem to have near the inheritance problems in general.
He then sent me this:
After thought: The old widower should have known what his daughter would probably do. What he should have done is set up a trust for the grandson with a disinterested third party as trustee and a copy to the trustee with a pre-arranged contract already in place. When setting up wills you need to imagine everything bad that could possibly happen. Parents all too often don't see their children the way they really are.
Now I'm not a lawyer, nor do I play one on TV, but that seems like good advice.
6 comments:
I knew an old man that died, a ww2 vet.Underneath his barn in PA, he had just about everything that individuals carried in that war, from the various countries. Stuff you wouldn't believe. He was in shipping and supplying in the war, so it makes sense. All unpapered. They're in good hands now.Not mine though.
Keep it secret, keep it safe.
-gandalf
I am a lawyer, and that IS good advice.
It can be difficult to divest assets that skip a generation due to taxation issues, but should be quite doable in a situation like the one above.
Always find a good lawyer when preparing wills or trusts and make sure your intent for the divestment of assets is very clear (i.e. who gets what, when, in what order) and carefully a choose an executor or the deceased's intent may not be properly honored.
I keep reading it and I can't find the words. I mean it does seem to fit the stereotype of the woman getting rid of a deceased male relatives guns. Against their wishes. Selling them for nothing and squandering the pittance they receive.
I once was asked a question by a woman who had just a son and essentailly was trying to force her husband to give up his 35 gun collection for free becasue she worried about her son's saftey. She had already said he refused to get rid of them and they had argued so she was going to get rid of them all behind his back and play with his emotions to get away with it. "For her children". She asked me where she could dispose of them. I just told her the kind of bitch she was that uses her children as an excuse to get her way. It was awhile back but it still pisses me off when I think about it.
A common game many play, "It's easier to get forgiveness than plermission". Some have no pride or ethics when it comes to getting what they want.
AgPilot60
permission
AgPilot60
Biggest estate our firm ever made money on was.....a trust.
Screwed up paperwork is screwed up paperwork, whether it's a will or a trust. There is no magic solution, and if you want to go cheap and try to do it yourself, okay...but no whining from beyond the grave about how you should have paid a lawyer a couple hundred bucks to make sure that a couple hundred thousand bucks went the "right" way.
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