NYC wills attorney

It happens often enough that a parent for many reasons decides to disinherit one, several or all of his/her children. At the same time, this is often not a controversial decision and is just as common both understandable and predicable. Perhaps a person promised their estate to a specific child, stepchild or niece or nephew for taking care of them instead of being required to be sent to a long term continuing care facility. Perhaps the parent provided financial largesse to his/her via college education, graduate school and even helped them purchase a house but had one child who had special needs who always lived at home and insured that child’s future by funding a trust during his/her lifetime and then disinherited all of his/her other children by putting the whole of the estate into the trust.

Mickey Rooney was a very well known and well paid actor that had a long career, with many children and many marriages and disinherited his children. He instead left his estate to his stepson and explained that his kids were better off than he was. By the time Mr. Rooney passed, his estate dwindled to just about $18,000, so there was little incentive for any of his kids to contest the will, although the same did not hold true for Mr. Rooney’s then current spouse. Unfortunately for some families, this can be a shock and there are sufficient incentives for the family to contest the will.

INVALIDATING THE WILL

WHAT HAPPENS IF A WILL IS INVALIDATED?

Wills are perhaps the most basic and simple form of passing on property and the transmission of wealth from one generation to the next. It allows the testator to give away the property and money that they own and have on hand as they see fit. A person can write a person out of a will, with certain limitations, include another non-child in the distribution and treat them as if they were a child or even leave it all to a charity. While the vast majority of wills are honored and respected without question, there is always the possibility that a potential heir may contest a will. In the event a will is invalidated a Surrogate’s Court must still resolve the issue of how and to whom shall the property be distributed. One possible way of dealing with issue of distributing the property if a will is invalidated is to utilize the state’s default, intestate distribution scheme. Another means is to revive a previous, otherwise valid will. This latter method is called the doctrine of dependent relative revocation.

DOCTRINE OF RELATIVE REVOCATION

Articles Tagged with NYC wills attorney

DISINHERITED HEIRS NOT ALWAYS A SURPRISE

INVALIDATING A WILL