Departing Shot: How to Disinherit Neatly
The Wall Street Journal recently publishded Departing Shot: How to Disinherit Neatly, Wall St. J., May 6, 2006, at B4, by Kaja Whitehouse. The following are excerpts from this article:
Will contests are becoming more common because people have more to leave behind, says Philip Bouklas, an estate planning attorney in New York.
At least $41 trillion will be passed on before the middle of this century, according to a study by two Boston College economists. Last year, in fact, saw a record number of millionaire households: 8.9 million, compared with 4.9 in 1996, according to research group TNS Financial Services.Consider using the following safeguards to protect your heirs from a long, costly court battle. Even if the jilted heir doesn't win, a will contest or lawsuit can place an estate in limbo and deplete money from the rightful beneficiaries for legal fees.
Equally as important as how to disinherit properly is how to ensure that one does not disinherit family members against one's true intentions, as established and expressed when one is in full command of the thought process. In my practice we see cases where a decedent made radical changes to estate plans in the last few years of life, upsetting long established estate plans to leave property fairly to children or other relatives. This leaves children or other relatives in the position of having to prove undue influence or lack of capacity in an attempt to restore an estate plan that was in effect for 95%+ of the decedent's life. Fortunately, many of our planning clients are amenable to taking precuations to ensure that this does not happen.
As more of the population lives longer but with reduced mental faculties, this type of planning can be extremely important, but is often overlooked.
Jeffrey Skatoff
www.clarkskatoff.com