Celebrity Estate Planning Blowups
I received the following article courtesy of WealthCounsel. I’m including it here for all of my Tennessee and Mississippi Estate Planning clients who might find it interesting.
The Worst Estates of the Year
Life is short-sometimes tragically so-and an estate plan is never truly
finished. The year’s most notable estate blowups were all sadly avoidable, if
only they had left clear intentions for everyone on their list.
Anna Nicole Smith
A $500 million baby . . . maybe
Only 39 when she died in February of an accidental overdose, Anna Nicole
Smith had not updated her 2001 will that named her son, Daniel, who had died of
an accidental overdose several months earlier, as sole heir. Probate court
will most certainly award her modest assets of roughly $700,000 to her only
surviving child, daughter Dannielynn. As for her share of billionaire
ex-husband J. Howard Marshall II’s estate, the court will likely name her daughter
the rightful heir of close to $500 million.
But where that money ends up will depend on the man who controls it-either
Dannielynn’s biological father, Larry Birkhead, or her mother’s lawyer and
companion, Howard K. Stern, who is named as executor and is likely to be a
trustee. Dannielynn’s financial future would have been safer if her mother’s
will had spelled out full provisions for a trust, says James Ferrell, a
trusts-and-estates attorney in Memphis, Tennessee. Ferrell has handled many estate
disputes involving people who have omitted certain children from their
wills, but the Smith case is virtually unprecedented. In most states, if a
wealth holder wishes to prevent a biological child from inheriting assets, it
must be stated in the will. Otherwise laws of intestacy will assume the child
was omitted unintentionally.
Tags: Living Trust, mississippi estate planning, tennessee estate planning, trusts, wills
I predict that HK$ will be indicted on charges of at least NEGLIGENCE in the death of ANS! {in a correct world this should preclude him from being able to be the Executor for Dannielynn}.
HOWEVER…all the greedy “gotcha” people like “The B….s of Birkwick…Dopey, Cosby; Arthur “who are hopping on the bandwaggon would disappear in a “puff of smoke” if D/L were to inherit nothing.
ARE THE LAWYERS FOR J HOWARD MARSHALL II holding up the procedure for personal gain??? Almost everyone is dead in this case…of course we all know that ANS should NOT RECEIVE ANY MORE FINANCIAL GAIN….BUT WHY CAN’T THIS CASE BE RESOLVED???
Can you tell me when the last hearing was?
CAN YOU TELL ME WHEN THE NEXT HEARING WILL BE?
HURRY UP AMERICA…this could be resolved very quickly!
Anna did not omit Dannielynn by name in her will but she did include a clause that omitted future spouses and children (which was executed before Dannielynn was born). I wonder if the court will assume that this was unintentional and still award her a share of Anna’s estate. At any rate, it still seems to me through the legal analysis that I have seen in the news that all of the estate planning her former husband did was done to intentionally leave out Anna and that J.Howard Marshall intended to provide for her with the assets and gifts that he gave her during his lifetime. Knowing this I can’t see how a court could award any amount of the Marshall money to Anna’s estate (i.e. Dannielynn).