The Afterlife of a Family Farm

Egomaniacs brag about the property that their heirs will inherit from them, and the biggest jerks boast about how clever they are in withholding money from people they don’t like, such as their ex or Medicaid beneficiaries, through crafty estate planning. Truly generous people think about the ways that the property they leave to their heirs could be burdensome to their heirs, and they find solutions to lessen the burden. For example, they let the beneficiary inherit through a trust instead of through the testator’s will if the taxes associated with inheriting the money will be costly, if the estate is at risk of creditor claims or challenges to the will, or if beneficiary is vulnerable to financial exploitation if he or she inherits the money outright. They declutter every year after retirement instead of leaving their families a house full of clutter to sort through. If they own real estate, they find out which family members want to inherit it, and they write their wills accordingly. Sometimes that means selling the property, or ordering the probate court to sell it, so that your heirs can inherit the proceeds of the sale. For help drafting a conflict-proof will that includes the sale of a piece of land or a real estate property, contact a Bronx estate planning lawyer.

Relatives Who Receive a Flat Amount Instead of a Percentage Feel Shortchanged

Joseph owned a farm that had belonged to his family for several generations, but he and his wife did not have children. When he died, his closest surviving relatives, and the beneficiaries of his will, were his own niece and the nephew and two nieces of his late wife. Joseph’s will indicated that the probate court should sell the farm, and that the three beneficiaries on his wife’s side of the family would each receive $50,000 from the proceeds of the sale, with the remaining proceeds going to Joseph’s niece Lorraine.

After Joseph died, Lorraine’s step-cousins challenged the will. They claimed that Joseph had written his will under influence from Lorraine, with whom he had lived in his final years. Joseph’s lawyer testified that Joseph was healthy when he wrote the will; it was long before he needed long-term care for Lorraine. He also testified that Joseph had hired him on the advice of another lawyer who presumably did not know Lorraine, and that Lorraine had never accompanied Joseph to his estate planning appointments. Therefore, the court ruled that Joseph’s will was valid.

Today, estate planning lawyers tend to advise clients to leave amounts of money to beneficiaries in percentages instead of flat amounts. Your financial situation may change substantially after you write your will. The worst-case scenario is that your estate does not have enough money to pay all the beneficiaries the amounts you indicated for them, so the beneficiaries listed later in the will do not inherit anything.

Schedule a Confidential Consultation With a Bronx Estate Planning Attorney

A probate lawyer can help you write your will to indicate the sale of real estate property without causing conflict.  Contact Cavallo & Cavallo in the Bronx, New York to set up a consultation.

Source:

scholar.google.com/scholar_case?case=14688168940684521346&q=undue+influence&hl=en&as_sdt=4,33&as_ylo=2015&as_yhi=2025