Dear Quentin, I appreciate and learn from your column, and read it religiously. Several of your recent readers have asked you questions about wills or what happens when someone dies without a will. I would like to add my experience to the scenarios you have already addressed in recent months, as it adds to your discussion of the consequences of avoiding proper estate planning.
A court appointed attorney once called to inform me that my mother’s cousin died without a will. The deceased had no children, spouse or siblings. The estate was being divided on the basis of closest kin, which, in this case it was the deceased person’s six cousins. An attorney contacted me. He was tracking down distant relatives of the deceased, because most of the six cousins were no longer living. In fact, only one cousin outlived the deceased person. The offspring of each deceased cousin were collectively awarded a share equal to 1/6 of the deceased’s estate minus court and attorney fees. Therefore, after about a year from the onset of this person’s death, my siblings and I each received an inheritance of about $9,000. The one cousin who was still alive at the time was legally entitled to 1/6 of the estate, close to $60,000. The law does not take into account whether a potential heir deserves, or needs the inheritance, but rather uses subjective formulas, as anyone would expect.Court documents This makes sense, but I can’t help but feel that …
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A court appointed attorney once called to inform me that my mother’s cousin died without a will. The deceased had no children, spouse or siblings. The estate was being divided on the basis of closest kin, which, in this case it was the deceased person’s six cousins. An attorney contacted me. He was tracking down distant relatives of the deceased, because most of the six cousins were no longer living. In fact, only one cousin outlived the deceased person. The offspring of each deceased cousin were collectively awarded a share equal to 1/6 of the deceased’s estate minus court and attorney fees. Therefore, after about a year from the onset of this person’s death, my siblings and I each received an inheritance of about $9,000. The one cousin who was still alive at the time was legally entitled to 1/6 of the estate, close to $60,000. The law does not take into account whether a potential heir deserves, or needs the inheritance, but rather uses subjective formulas, as anyone would expect.Court documents This makes sense, but I can’t help but feel that …nnDiscussion:nn” ai_name=”RocketNews AI: ” start_sentence=”Can I tell you more about this article?” text_input_placeholder=”Type ‘Yes'”]