A Corporate Executor and Trustee is Worth Fighting For

Real estate bigwig and philanthropist George Kaufman changed his will shortly before his death, removing his longtime lawyer as executor and trustee. Now the lawyer has gone to court, claiming the changes are the result of elder abuse by Kaufman's wife.

Kaufman's will divides his estate among various individuals and creates a charitable foundation. The final amendment designates Bessemer Trust as executor and trustee.

The choice of a trust company, The Wall Street Journal reports, has drawn the approval of New York State officials:

The office of New York’s attorney general, which supervises charities in the state, has supported Bessemer, calling it a “disinterested, neutral corporate fiduciary.” The attorney general’s office accused [the lawyer] of being motivated by his own financial interest and holding up the creation of the charity.

Johnny Hallyday’s Domicile? See Instagram!

Hallyday in 1965
photo©ErlingMandelmann.ch

Johnny Hallyday, France's answer to Elvis, was little appreciated by U.S. audiences. In France he was a
national icon, right up there with Edith Piaf.

Hallyday died in 2017, leaving two wills, one of which was probated in Los Angeles, where he and his fourth wife had taken up residence in 2007. The will leaves everything to his widow, who has their two adopted children in her care. The will leaves nothing to Hallyday's two older children from previous marriages.

In France, where a form of forced heirship still rules, the older children would not be disinherited. So they went to court in France, seeking to show that Hallyday had still been domiciled in France, not LA.

The French court has now agreed to take up the case, convinced in part by photos Hallyday had posted on his Instagram account from 2012 to 2017.  They indicate that he spent more than 150 days in France during both 2015 and 2016. In 2017 he was in France for eight months before his death.

In the age of not only Photoshop but AI, the use of digital photographs as evidence seems destined to become increasingly iffy. No other type of fake news is easier to create.

The “Sewer Rat” and the Misplaced Wil

From the UK, the tale of how a "cavalier and reckless" heir hunter — a company that traces people who may not realize they’re in line for part of a deceased relative’s estate — came perilously close to denying a retired film editor the home his aunt left him in her will.

Fred Trump's Tax-Averse Estate Planning

Fred Trump in 1950

Seemed like a quiet year for estate planners. With the Trump tax cuts old news, the Heckerling Institute resorted to promos on NPR to drum up business.

But now Heckerling attendees will have plenty to talk about. The New York Times has published a virtually endless study, adorned with audio-visuals, of how Fred Trump passed his real estate fortune to his children, and most especially to his celebrity son, Donald. Hidden gifts! A large GRAT valued for little! An overreaching codicil that Donald tried, unsuccessfully, to attach to Fred Trump's will!

Even in the age of fake news, you can't make this stuff up.

Leonard Bernstein's Legacy

Leonard Bernstein

Born one hundred years ago, August 25, 1918, Leonard Bernstein died in 1990, leaving an estate estimated at $5 million and a 20-page will that placed his estate in trust for his three children.

Considering the royalties that West Side Story alone must produce, $5 million was a dubious estimate of his estate's value. For the benefit of those not aged enough to remember Lenny, the Library of Congress provides this description:

Bernstein, arguably the most prominent figure in American classical music of the second half of the twentieth century, made his impact as a conductor, as a composer of classical and theater music, and as an educator through books, conducting students at Tanglewood, and especially through various televised lecture series that helped define the potentials of that medium.

The centennial of his birth is being widely celebrated, especially at Tanglewood, the music center in the Berkshires where Lenny got his start and where he returned to teach and conduct throughout his lifetime. The close bond between Bernstein and Tanglewood can be sensed in John Rockwell's account of his last summer there.

Bradley Cooper

Readers seeking to know more about America's remarkable 20th-century prodigy should consult the Library of Congress collection linked above. In addition to holding materials from Bernstein's estate, the collection, nicely organized for digital viewing, has been enriched by contributions from others.

Or they can wait for the movie – a biopic in which Lenny is to be portrayed by Bradley Cooper.

Should She Neutralize Her Ex's Estate Plan?

Query to The Ethicist in The New York Times magazine:

I am divorced. I recently learned from one of my children that my ex is leaving them uneven shares of his wealth. He’s leaving less to our son, the child he dislikes. His rationale is that this particular child has poor money-management skills 

My will, so far, is divided evenly. As I’ve told my children repeatedly, I love them equally, and I want this love reflected in my will.  

Should I change it to give more to the child disliked by his father, in order that the children come out more or less equal? Would the other child, our daughter, feel slighted and less loved?

Yes, use your will to equalize things, rules The Ethicist, and explain your strategy to your daughter.

As for the son's lack of money-management skills, "you can solve that problem (as your ex-husband could have) by putting the money in a trust."

Forging a Will? Don't Draft It Online

Matt, a roustabout who survived the Deepwater Horizon explosion and received a multi-million-dollar settlement for his injuries, wanted to buy a house in his home town. At a local real estate agency he was introduced to Donna, who found him a property near her own home. Soon Matt, with Donna's encouragement, was dating her teenage daughter, Alex.

When Matt died in a crash of his Crossfire (no seat belt!)  his considerable estate presumably passed to his young son. But lo and behold, Donna soon found a copy of a will Matt had made in 2014, leaving almost everything to Alex.

Where was the original? The resourceful Donna found that, too, in front of witnesses, when she opened a safe in Matt's home. The will shortchanged Matt's son so severely that the probate court approved a settlement giving him 15% of the estate.

But the young son may do much better, if the Feds don't decide to keep Matt's assets. Someone has discovered that Matt's will was drafted online, at Formswift.com. When? Digital footprints indicate the will was created in 2015, some days after Matt died.

Donna is slated to go on trial for her alleged crimes in April. You can read the whole story here, complete with a few quotes from the Wills, Trusts and Estate Prof.

Or maybe it's not the whole story, Circumstantial evidence hints that Matt did make a will, so far unfound.

Note: The article linked above is now behind a paywall, but here's an update.

“Psychic Phenomena and the Law”

Couldn't access the article on psychic mediums mentioned by the Wills, Trusts and Estates Prof, but the effort led me to a gem, Blewett Lee's 1921 Harvard Law Review article, Psychic Phenomena and the Law. 

Lee discusses cases involving ghosts, like the spirit of Thomas Harris. When Harris' will was questioned, endangering his children's inheritance, his ghost repeatedly pestered William Brigs and gave Brigs a message for Harris' brother, reminding him that they had discussed how the estate should be managed in the best interests of the children. The brother complied. (Why the ghost didn't speak directly to the brother is not explained.)

In the 1920's magical writing, seances and such were in vogue. Lee wrote that messages from the dead deserved respect.

In determining what legal effect is to be given to spiritualistic communications believed to be genuine by the recipient, the communications should be treated for legal purposes as if the supposed communicators had still survived, and made the communications. *** 

If, for example, a person believes that his dead mother told him to make a certain devise, the communication should be dealt with, so far as the believer is concerned, as if it had in fact been made by his mother. 

"The more importance is given to these communications," Lee explained, "the easier it will be to break wills or contracts made under their control."

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Son of a Confederate general, Blewett Lee was notable in his own right. After Harvard Law School, he won appointment as clerk to a United States Supreme Court Justice. "He was the only clerk not to have attended an elite preparatory school, the only one not a graduate of Harvard College, and the only law clerk from south of the Mason-Dixon Line."

Some ghosts can fly, but that probably doesn't explain Blewett Lee's interest in early aviation law.

Blewett’s ideas and methodology concerning aerial laws, published nearly a century earlier, remain influential today. In a 2012 article referencing the legal issues posed by the popularity of drones, Dr. Timothy T. Takahashi of Arizona State University cited Blewett’s work as a viable model for current drone regulations.

The Internet has its flaws and its trolls, but I'm grateful for the introduction to Blewett Lee.

Who Gets the $7 million townhouse?

The Horatio Street townhouse 

Back around the time young Bob Zimmerman moved to New York and legally changed his surname to Dylan, Bill Cornwell and Tom Doyle moved into an apartment in a West Village townhouse on Horatio Street. Cornwell later bought the building, and there they stayed. Although gay marriage was unthinkable half a century ago, the two men became a well-known couple in the West Village.

In 2014 Cornwell died at age 88. His will left his personal possessions and his townhouse to Doyle. But the will is invalid, signed by only one witness – New York State requires two. So Cornwell died intestate. Nieces and nephews will inherit. Could Tom Doyle lose the only home he has known for over five decades?

Not without a fight, writes Attorney Arthur Z. Schwartz:

Tom has come to my office and we have come up with a plan. While New York never recognized common law marriage, Pennsylvania did until recently. Bill Cornwall and Tom Doyle vacationed there a number of times, and New York Courts will recognize common law marriages if they would be recognized in a state where a couple visited, even if the visit was brief. I have made Tom Doyle’s rightful claim to 69 Horatio Street. It is a claim born of love and the cruel refusal of New York to recognize gay marriage for so many years.

Could the plan succeed? In any event, the moral of the story is that Bill Cornwall should have shaped his estate plan sooner and better.

Politics: Another Reason to Pick a Professional Executor

Is It OK to Cut My Trump-Supporting Relatives Out of My Will?

Last of the Great Stock Pickers?

Perhaps the only clue that Ronald Read, a Vermont gas station attendant and janitor who died last year at age 92, had been quietly amassing an $8 million fortune was his habit of reading the Wall Street Journal, his friends and family say.

The Case of the Dixfield Cats

In a modest trailer in Dixfield, Maine live a lucky group of homeless cats – lucky because they are looked after by the Dixfield Cat Ladies.

Twelve years ago one of the Cat Ladies died. She left most of her estate, about $150,000, for the creation of a corporation or trust "for the purpose of providing shelter, food and health care for abandoned and unwanted cats in the Town of Dixfield."

Are the Dixfield cats living in luxury and organic catnip? Not yet. Predictably, bequests to animals produce more snarls than purrs.

Gerry Beyer Goes Into "Hotchpot"

In Parade, the Wills, Trusts and Estates Prof introduces laymen like me to "going into hotchpot." That's a procedure for figuring the kids' equitable shares of an estate when they have had unequal advancements.

In non-legal usage, the dictionary explains, hotchpot evolved into hotchpotch and hodgepodge." Hodge" was an English nickname for Roger that came to refer to the "ordinary Joe."

You learn something new every day.

Should Perfect Son Inherit More Than Troublesome Daughter?

From Annie's Mailbox: A couple have two grown children – a perfect son and a troubled daughter who has received significantly more financial aid. Their old wills leave the son 60 percent of their estate and put 40 percent in trust for the daughter.

Their problem, if you can call it that: The couple's net worth has grown to around $12 million.  Penalizing the daughter for the funds expended on her behalf now feels mingy. Should they change their wills?

Yes, Annie's Mailbox advises. Leave the son and daughter equal inheritances.

That's usually good advice. Parents who follow it may earn the gratitude of the beneficiary who would have received more as well as the one who would have received less. Being the favored child can have its downside in later life.

Related post: Why Some Wills Don't Treat Children Equally.

David Bowie's Will: Father Played Fair

As we noted the other day, one third of parents leave their children unequal inheritances. Previous generations were much more likely to treat their children equally.

So you might say David Bowie executed an old-school will. He left equal shares of his estate, estimated at $100 million or so,  to his son from his first marriage and his teenage daughter. (Her inheritance will be held in trust.)

Bowie also upheld old-school values by leaving seven-figure bequests to his personal assistant and his daughter's nanny.

Why Some Wills Don't Treat Children Equally

In 2010, according to this research, one third of parents with wills were planning to divide their estates unequally among their children. Fifteen years earlier, only 16 percent of parents were planning unequal distributions.

Why the trend to inequality? Mainly, the growing complexity of families as the result of widowhood or divorce. Stepchildren may get less than natural children. Children seldom seen after a divorce may receive less than children from a second marriage.

Stepchildren are wise not to expect to inherit much from a new step-parent. Their odds improve after ten years, and improve further if they produce babies for their parent and step-parent to fancy.
(A broker once told me that elderly English family members like to "baby fancy." Nice term.)

Brits Can't Necessarily Disinherit Their Kids

The European notion of forced heirship seems to have seeped across the English Channel. Could it eventually spread to this side of the pond?

The Guardian describes a case where an estranged daughter eventually won a share of her mother's estate, aided by a 1975 Inheritance Act designed to protect adult children.

Estranged offspring hate being cut out of their parents' wills, as the Daily Mail illustrates here.

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Will disputes continue to increase in the UK. Here, too? 

Philanthropy's Name Game Takes a Hit

"Can you tell me the way to the lecture in Higglestone Center?"

"Yes, sir. Continue down Bubba Burns Hall to Axel Turner Door. Turn the Emma Branson Doorknob and walk through to the Prince Abbadabba Arcade. Follow the Arcade to  the Jim and Patsy Gotrocks Archway. You'll see Higglestone on your right, just beyond the Hugh Networthy Terrace."

The Name Game has gotten out of hand. Donors expect their names on buildings and wings of buildings and floors and rooms and equipment and playing fields and (excuse the expression) you name it.

Worse, old donor names are being replaced by new ones. At New York's Lincoln Center (not yet renamed Trump Center) Avery Fisher Hall just turned into David Geffen Hall.

Now comes a possible road block. A New York Court just ruled that Paul Smith's College may not change its name in order to qualify for a $20 million gift from Joan Weill, wife of Sandy Weill, the retired Citi tycoon.

The college, situated within Adirondack Park, was created more than 75 years ago with a bequest from Phelps Smith. His will required the school to “be forever known” as Paul Smith’s College of Arts and Sciences, in honor of his father.

The Weills, philanthropists par excellence, deserve lasting recognition. However, they already have their names on numerous benefactions. Does the court decision suggest that the Name Game may be reaching its limits? Or will "lasting recognition" become merely temporary?

Paul Smith's College

Police Officer Loses Job and Webber Inheritance

The Webber case, involving an elderly woman who was leaving more than $2 million mostly to charities until she met a young police officer, is decided at last. The officer, already fired from the force, loses his inheritance as well.

The court found Aaron Goodwin exerted undue influence over Geraldine Webber, who was in her 90s when she made a new will leaving Goodwin her waterfront home and other assets.

The Portsmouth Herald, our local paper, covered the Webber case like a blanket, spotlighting local attorneys who had refused – or in one case agreed – to draft her new will and questioning the actions or inactions of the police department and its commissioners.

How much of the more than $2 million is left to distribute, under Webber's earlier will, has yet to be reported.

Postscript: Morning paper just arrived. Can't accuse them of downplaying the story.

My New Executor? Software Code, of Course!

"This is the first time in legal history that the administration of a will is handed over to a non-human. In this case, software code is the executor." So boasts Bockchain Apparatus, a Bitcoin 2.0 startup.

The company says that in the foreseeable future we will have a software/network combination which is the executor of the decedent's last will and testament. Bitcoin 2.0 protocols are used to make actual dispositions and disbursements of the assets in an estate, and are able to do so while taking into consideration many facts which are indeterminate at the time of the will's creation, similar to traditional trust frameworks.

 The software "executor" function is built into a blockchain will, which can be updated and revised.

O brave new world, that has such computer code in't!