wills | Jay Brinker – Cincinnati Attorney

Bad Mom

Sunday, 15 January 2017 20:48

Ken Thompson was the Brooklyn District Attorney who died of cancer in October. Two weeks prior to his death, he allegedly changed his will to omit any bequest to his mother and instead left his estate in trust for his wife and 2 young children.

His mother is contesting the will alleging that he did not know what he was doing due to his illness. As support for her theory, she argues that Thompson was unhappy with his marriage because of the amount of money his wife was spending.

Three quick points:

1. It is anything but unusual for a man with young children to leave his entire estate to his wife and children. Providing for a mother is what would be unusual.

2. The creation of trusts to assist his wife with financial management of the inheritance shows mental clarity not lack of mental capacity.

3. If Thompson was unhappy with his wife’s spending, he is in the majority of husbands.

Between a Rock and Hard Place

Wednesday, 02 November 2016 15:24

Bill Cornwell lived in a Greenwich Village brownstone with his same sex partner for 50 years. When he died two years ago, his will left the building and all of his possessions to his partner. However, the will was only witnessed by one individual while NY law requires two witnesses. Without a valid will, his estate will pass to his closest living relatives who are his nieces and nephews who recently sold the building for $7 million. The partner has since filed suit trying to prove that he and Mr. Cornwell were actually married, although they were not, so he can be considered the closest heir.

So many points and such short attention spans:

1. All wills require two witnesses not related to the individual and who will not receive any assets under the will.

2. Using a DIY will kit could lead to problems with properly executing wills (among other issues)

3. The legal arguments made by the partner verge on stupid. One of them is that even though they lived in NY, which does not recognize common law marriage, they bought a dog in Pennsylvania in 1991 as a symbol of their commitment to each other and because Pennsylvania used to recognize common law marriage they should be considered as married.

4. The 85 year old partner would be better off dropping the law suit and accepting the offer of the nieces and nephews to live in the apartment for 5 years at a monthly rental of $10 and receive $250,000 upon the sale of the building.

5. The entire problem could have been avoided if they had simply married each other once gay marriage became legal.

6. One niece claimed, apparently with a straight face, that her uncle did not want his partner to inherit or he would have properly executed the will. She also suggested that perhaps the men were just friends or great companions. The address of the rock under which she lives is unknown.

Old Adult Fiction

Friday, 16 September 2016 08:29

A former University of New Hampshire librarian who lived frugally, left his entire $4 million estate to the university. The UNH promptly fulfilled his mostly unrestricted bequest by allocating $100K to the library where he worked (some might say toiled) for 50 years, $1 million for a video scoreboard for the football stadium, and $2.5 million for the career center to presumably assist students with worthless majors like women’s studies, anthropology, and fine arts find jobs other than as baristas.

Several points only marginally associated with estate planning:

By leaving his entire estate to charity, the former librarian will not incur state or federal estate tax.
Even though he spent the last year of his life in an assisted living facility watching (and finally learning about) football, I highly doubt that he would approve of UNH spending $1 million in his name on a video scoreboard for their minor league football team (avg attendance 6,000 last year). I doubt the absence of a video scoreboard is keeping people away.
Although assisting students with job placement after they selected useless majors is a questionable use of one’s savings, it is no less worthy than leaving money to a library in the 21st Century when most functions of a library are available on on-line (except for providing a physical warm or cool space for the homeless during the Winter or Summer).

Purple Reign?

Tuesday, 23 August 2016 16:37

The Santa Monica Observer, a weekly newspaper, is reporting that a DNA test shows that a Washington man in his 30’s is the illegitimate son of Prince. The man’s mother reportedly played in the same clubs as Prince in the 1980’s. He and his mother are reportedly estranged due to her contacting him after Prince’s death by a Facebook message imploring him to call her by saying “Prince might be your, father call me.”

Several pithy points:

1. If the story is true, the man would be Prince’s closest living relative and in position to inherit his entire estate.

2. However, if the man had been adopted by another man, his right to inherit from Prince would be closed off because Prince would not be considered his father.

3. Odd that this story is reported only by the Santa Monica equivalent of City Beat which is known for concert listings, hating all Republicans and the local and state government, and for classified ads of men seeking men and women seeking women.

4. Perhaps the national media is too busy asking about Hillary’s missing e-mails, her health, and her refusal to hold a press conference in 2016 to bother themselves with updating the search for Prince’s heirs

Attacking Camelot

Sunday, 17 July 2016 21:22

Socialite Alicia Clark died in February. Her will left her $17.5 million estate to the Humane Society. Her estate is in the news because the administrator of her estate has filed a Freedom of Information request to open a file which might shed light on whether Clark was the mother of a JFK love child even though she had long denied having a child with the late President.

She had reportedly planned to blackmail President Kennedy’s father in the early 60’s related to such rumors. The blackmail attempt only became public after her then attorney went public after she did not pay his $1.2 million bill (in 1961 dollars) for negotiating a will with her soon to die husband which gave her $10 million for 13 days of marriage. Meanwhile, a man in the Bahamas claims the will is fake and that her valid will is a handwritten will she made in the Bahamas in 2001. That alleged will left one million to each of the doormen at her NYC apartment and the caretaker of that apartment, and the rest to the guy in the Bahamas. Got it?

So many possibilities, so let’s try to stay focused on the salient points:

1. The JFK love child angle seems to be irrelevant. If Clark had a child and raised him, she would have provided for him in her will and would have been seen with him in the past 55 years. If she gave him up for adoption, that child has no rights under law because his rights to her estate would be terminated due to the adoption.

2. Some (re: me) might think that the estate administrator is grandstanding (successfully because he made the news) or is running up a larger bill than necessary in looking for a love child who likely has nothing to do with the estate, even if he exists.

3. Clark’s former attorney’s $1.2 million bill for what is essentially a pre-nuptial agreement seems excessively large by any standards much less those of 1961. Those agreements are not typically handled on a contingent fee basis which must have been the basis on which he billed.

4. That said, $10 million for 13 days of marriage to a dying man might be worth a $1.2 million fee.

5. Lastly, the Bahamas guy must be suffering from sunstroke or island fever. Everyone besides the writers of Harold and Maude knows that Manhattan socialites do not create handwritten wills on vacation to leave their estates to their staff and random guys in the islands.

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