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The Morning Line Again

 
I subbed for Paul Daugherty’s The Morning Line blog again today. I did a deep dive on the change in basketball coaches at UC. I hope you enjoy it.
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Photo Credit:  Kareem Elgazzar/Cincinnati Enquirer
License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article) 

Don’t Do Me Like That

When Tom Petty died of a drug overdose 18 months ago, he was survived by his second wife, Dana York, and his two daughters from his first marriage, Adria and Annakim. Petty created a trust to administer and distribute his assets. He named his widow as the trustee. He also directed that his music rights and royalties be transferred to a company to be managed equally by his widow and daughters.

His wife believes “equally” means a 50/50 split of management while the daughters contend that “equally” means they each get a vote for 2/3 control. The eldest daughter has opposed a 25th anniversary release of Petty’s last good album, Wildflowers, and has flamed various members of his band and the City of Gainesville. His widow has petitioned the LA probate court to appoint a day to day manager of the estate and requested that Adria act respectably.

Several quick points:

1. No matter how much planning a person does, there is no guarantee that his heirs will behave after his death.

2. Second marriages are always ripe for irrational emotional reactions after a death.

3. The estate planning attorney likely wishes he had defined “equally” in the trust.

4. A bank trustee can sometimes diffuse some of a beneficiary’s distrust, but not always. And usually not with someone as ill tempered as Adria.

5. In the streaming music era, the expected windfall from the re-release of Wildflowers is illusory. No one under 50 buys CDs.

Photo Credit:  NY Post? – vidcap

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

One Hall of Famer, One Grandfather, One Grandson, and 47 Years

When my grandfather tended bar for the owners of the Cincinnati Reds in their luxury suite in the 1970’s, he had his picture taken with Johnny Bench. Today, I met Johnny Bench in the Dinsmore box and recreated the photo. Thanks to Brian Sullivan and George Vincent of Dinsmore. And special thanks to the greatest catcher of all time.

 

Dial Down The Pressure

This is a terribly sad story. Kelly Catlin, a 23 year old who won an Olympic silver medal as a cyclist in 2016, killed herself last weekend in her dorm at Stanford. She was working on her masters in Computational Mathematics after majoring in Biomedical Engineering and Chinese at the University of Minnesota. Kelly suffered a concussion in January from a bike crash. She previously had tried to commit suicide in January but police found her in time. In the week before her death she wrote about balancing time and taking time for oneself in Velonews.
 
As the father of a 23 year old daughter, the father of a son who suffered a concussion two years ago while competing in cross country, and as a recreational cyclist, Kelly’s death hits particularly close. I have three quick points:
 
1. Take concussions seriously. Give the brain all the time it needs to heal. It might be a long time but that is relative.
 
2. Help your children manage internal pressure (although it seems Kelly put incredible pressure on herself to succeed) and relieve it as much as possible.  In the long run, the source of perceived pressure is likely not that important.
 
3. Hug your children tonight and tell them you love them.
 
Photo Credit:  Wil Matthews
License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article).

TML Again

Bit late with this, but I guest wrote Paul Daugherty’s The Morning Line blog for the Cincinnati Enquirer on Friday. I covered the debut of FC Cincinnati while being complimentary to Mick Cronin. I also recapped our February in Phoenix. I hope you enjoy it.

21st Century King Lear

© PatrickMcMullan
Photo – Owen Hoffmann License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

Herbert Neumann is the trustee of trust which owns 60 works of art worth an estimated $50 million. The most valuable piece is “Untitled (Tyranny)” by Jean-Michel Basquiat. The trust was created by Neumann’s brother for the benefit of Neumann’s 3 daughters. Now, one of the daughters, Belinda Neumann-Donnelly, is suing her father in his capacity as trustee to sell all of the artworks. She claims that the art will be impossible to divide equitably and that she needs funds for her family’s “significant housing, litigation, and education expenses.”

The same daughter has another lawsuit, presumably the source of the significant litigation expenses, against her father involving the sale of another Basquiat painting, “Flesh and Spirit,” formerly owned by her mother who died in 2016 that sold for $30.7 million last year. She claims that her father’s threat to contest the sale of the painting depressed the sales price. Oddly, she lives in the same two family building in NY as her father.
Several points:
1. The lawsuit to sell the paintings owned by the trust is likely premature because the trust likely provides that it will distribute its assets upon the death of Neumann.
2. Neumann’s wife, who owned the painting sold for $30.7 million, disinherited him from her will alleging he abused her. I am surprised that he did not elect against the will which would entitle him to 1/3 of his wife’s estate including part of the painting sales proceeds.
3. If Neumann’s wife gave the painting to the daughter before she died, as some articles insinuate, the wife would have been required to file a gift tax return and pay gift tax on nearly $25 million and the daughter would have to pay capital gain tax on almost the entire sales amount (Mrs. Neumann only paid $15K for the painting).
4. The emperor truly has no clothes because Basquiat paintings look like the drawings of a bored high school student on the back of his spiral notebook.

Trouble Don’t Set Up Like Rain

Marcelle Harrison’s mother and step-father, both of whom were Barbadian immigrants, purchased a house in Boston in 1970 for $23K. Her mom died in 2009. Her step-father died without a will two years later.
 
Now, Harrison and her multi-generation family are being forced to leave the $1 million home because they are not the legal owners. Because her step-father died without a will, his closest living relatives, nieces and nephews who live in Barbados, will inherit his estate. A state representative who lives across the street said “It shocks the conscience to think that this low-income, Barbadian family could be displaced, really out of the blue.”
 
A few points, some of which I have made before:
 
1. The legal outcome is correct – under the statute of intestate succession, which applies when there is no will, Harrison has no claim on her step-father’s estate no matter how long he was married to her mother.
 
2. Thoughtful estate planning is important for everyone, but even more so for second marriages and blended families.
 
3. The local politician might find this outcome shocking, but I am not shocked that a Massachusetts politician would use identity politics to describe the problem while being ignorant of the law.
 
Photo Credit:  Jessica Rinaldi/Boston Globe
License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

This Keeps Me Employed

Comic License:  Nick Galifianakis/Washington Post

License:  Fair Use/Education

Feeling Low Cotton

Gerald Cotten ran QuadrigaCX, one of Canada’s largest crytopcurrency exchange companies.  Last month, the company announced that 30 year old Mr. Cotten died in early December of complications from Crohn’s Disease while building orphanages in India.  The company also announced that $140 million of cryptocurrency was unavailable because all of the currency was stored on a laptop that only he had access to and no one knew the password.   There is concern that the cryptocurrency will be locked on the laptop forever.  However, digital forensic experts have questioned whether the currency is actually on the laptop and whether it was moved previously.

One planning point, one investment point, and a lot of shade.

1. This is a classic instance of making sure that your heirs can access your digital accounts after your death.  I advise my clients to write down their passwords to prevent heirs from being locked out after death.

2. Cryptocurrency investments can be dangerous enough without trusting them to a twenty-something operating on a laptop out of his house in Nova Scotia. 

3. Not to be a conspiracist, but I do question the legitimacy of reports of a young man dying of Crohn’s disease (mortality rate of 1%) while overseas doing charity work with the death reported a month later, and $140 million possibly missing and not simply locked on a computer.  Feel free to call me a cynic, though.

 

 

Photo Credit:  Benoit Tessier/Reuters

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

Scourge of Our Times

Newtown police chief, Tom Synan, was featured in a video on USA Today’s sitea about his work on the front line combating opioid addiction and treating it as an illness and not as a crime. I am honored to call him a friend.

 

 

 

Photo credit:  USA Today (actually it is a video)

License:  Fair Use/Education (from the linked article)

Identity Theft?

Jeanne Calment has been considered the world’s longest lived person since she died at the age of 122 in 1997. She allegedly smoked until she could not light a cigarette without assistance. Recently, a Russian gerontologist and a Russian mathematician have questioned her longevity and floated the theory that Calment stole her mother’s identity for the purposed of avoiding French inheritance taxes in the 1930’s. Their theory is that she did not look or act that old. The result is that Calment was only 99 when she died.

Only three points:

1. I always enjoyed the part of Calment’s bio where she sold her apartment when she was 90 to a man who agreed to pay her a monthly sum until she died. She outlived him by two years so he wound up paying 2X for the real estate.

2. Like many points of French governance, the estate tax laws are complicated. Nonetheless, the tax rates are not so confiscatory that compliance merits identity theft as a means of avoidance.

3. Is there any type of disinformation campaign that Russians will not engage in?

Photo Credit:  Reuters

License:  Fair Use/Education

Happy New Year (Belated)

Best wishes for the new year. And no, Jack is not taller than me. 😊

Merry Christmas

Best wishes from our family to yours.

End of the Year TML

I subbed for Paul Daugherty’s The Morning Line blog in the Cincinnati Enquirer yesterday. I reviewed the year in sports with a Cincinnati perspective. I hope you like it.

 

Photo Credit:  Sarah Brookbank for Cincinnati Enquirer

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

Melvin and Howard

Melvin Dummar died this week. He was famous for having been named as a 1/16th beneficiary of Howard Hughes’ unwitnessed handwritten will which was known as “The Mormon Will.

Dummar allegedly found a disheveled Hughes near a Nevada brothel and gave him a ride to The Sands hotel in 1967. After Hughes’ death in 1976, an unknown man delivered a letter to Dummar, who was then living in Utah, for forwarding to the Church of Latter Day Saints. Before delivering it, Dummars steamed it open and saw that he and the Mormon Church were listed as beneficiaries of the will. Hughes was not a Mormon, but Dummars was. The will was one of 40 wills purportedly made by Hughes none of which were deemed to be valid.

A valid will for Hughes was never found resulting in his fortune benefitting distant cousins and other relatives. Hughes reportedly did not want his relatives to benefit from his fortune. Dummar’s alleged encounter with Hughes was made into the award winning movie, “Melvin and Howard,” in 1980.

Several points:

1. As a single man with no children and no siblings, Hughes definitely should have prepared an estate plan to distribute his billions.

2. As a man who dated Katherine Hepburn, Ava Gardner, and Gloria Vanderbilt among others, it is doubtful that Hughes frequented a brothel hours from Las Vegas although the uncut hair and fingernails might have been a turn off..

3. If this incredible story were not already made into a movie, it screams of material that needs to be made into a movie.

Photo Credit:  United Press International

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

(Not) Gentle on His Mind (Part 2)

I previously noted that Glen Campbell’s 3 children from his second marriage were contesting his will which he signed in 2006. The will omitted them, likely due to their supporting their mother during her divorce from Campbell and later suing him over the publishing rights she received in the settlement. His 2001 will also omitted them. The children recently dropped their lawsuit.

A few points:

1. The lawsuit would have been difficult to win because Campbell made both wills long before he went public with his Alzheimer’s diagnosis.

2. Campbell’s estate was recently valued at $1.2 million which is way less than the original estimate of $50 million.

3. If the omitted children were successful in challenging Campbell’s estate plan, they would have inherited $100K each tops.

4. The money for recording artists is in the writing and publishing not the performing. Campbell generally performed songs written by others.

5. Three divorces, 8 children, and years of cocaine use are never conducive to accumulating wealth.

Photo credit:  Larry McCormack/The Tennessean

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

Mini-Me and Maximum Bill

Verne Troyer is the actor famous for playing Mini-Me in the Austin Powers movies. He committed suicide by alcohol poisoning in April. After ingesting the alcohol, he called 911 and told dispatchers he wanted to die. He was rushed to the hospital but died 3 weeks later. He left an estate valued at $150K. Just recently the hospital which treated him filed a claim against his estate for $360K.

Three small points:

1. In Ohio, a creditor has six months from the date of death to file a claim for payment against the estate. If the claim is not made, the estate does not have to pay the debt.

2. Debts must be paid before the beneficiaries receive any assets. Troyer’s heirs will not receive anything from his estate.

3. If there are insufficient assets to pay debts, the debts die with the decedent. The heirs are not responsible for them.

4. No snark when someone commits suicide.

Photo Credit:  REX/Shutterstock 

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

If It Is Not One Thing, It Is Something Else

 

Your chances of death rated by activity. Climbing in the Himalayas is definitely a death wish, as is base jumping (and its cousin, wing suit flying). As a cyclist, I am bummed out to see the somewhat high risk of death for cycling.

Be careful out there. And prepare a will.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Source:  besthealthcaredegress.com
License:  Fair Use/Education

TML Again

I subbed for Paul Daugherty’s The Morning Line blog in the Cincinnati Enquirer again today. I touched on some recent sports deaths and firings, the basketball jerseys honoring Prince, and reviewed my favorite book of the year. I hope you enjoy it.

 

Photo Credit:  Unknown

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

 

 

 

Tasered and Confused

A local story has a probate court angle. The City of Cincinnati has agreed to settle a lawsuit brought by an 11 year old shoplifter who was tasered after running from an off duty police officer. The young girl, who had been caught and warned previously for stealing from the same store, had $53 of stolen merchandise on her. She will receive $220,000 from the city and $20,000 from Kroger for the indignity of being tasered.

Several points and one prediction:

1. Because the girl is a minor, the settlement will be subject to probate court supervision until she turns 18.

2. Funds may only be spent with the approval of the probate court and then only for her mental health to overcome the trauma of being tasered.

3. She will have unrestricted access to the funds when she turns 18.

4. Call it more than a hunch that the number of shoplifting incidents at Kroger without repercussions will increase dramatically.

Photo Credit:  Albert Cesare/Cincinnati Enquirer

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

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All Posts By Jay Brinker

I am an attorney located in Cincinnati, Ohio who practices in the areas of estate planning, probate, asset protection, and small business advice. I make a difficult and bewildering process as simple as possible. Most importantly, I provide "more for less" for my clients.