Pedophile Will

So my blog prognostication abilities continue to be abysmal. In addition to the coroner determining that Jeffrey Epstein hung himself, he actually prepared a will two days before he died.

Epstein’s will left everything to a trust he created the same day as his will. Of course, the trust beneficiaries and its terms are private. His will designates two long time employees as co-executors of his estate and provided that they would each receive $250K for serving in that capacity. Meanwhile, an attorney for one of the women suing Epstein claims that he was an evil genius for filing the estate in the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Several quick points:

1. Epstein’s estate is being probated in the US Virgin Islands because that is where he was considered a resident. Estates are probated in the decedent’s state of domicile.

2. The NY Post’s expert who said the will was filed in the Virgin Islands due to privacy reasons and the attorney suing Epstein on behalf of his alleged victims who thinks the US Virgin Islands filings are pure evil are fools and need to brush up on probate law.

3. It is interesting that the executors have agreed to fill that role for $250K. The commissions for executors are set by statute. Typically, they would receive a percentage of the estate which would be at least 1% or $5.7 million in this matter.

4. The reporting by the NY Post and the NYT has been error filled on this matter. I expect shoddy reporting from them on matters involving President Trump and from the Cincinnati Enquirer, but not from the NYT on a story like this.

Photo Credit:  NY Post  Composite

License:  Fair Use/Education (from linked article)

Google recently updated its terms of service to make it easier for the relatives of a deceased owner of a Google account to deal with the account.  By checking a box, an individual can request that Google close an account, notify Google that a user is deceased, request the payment of funds from a deceased user's account, and obtain data from a deceased user's account.  The request page is here.

Three brief points:

1.  This is a a rare example of Google acting uncharacteristically altruistic instead of operating solely in its own self interest.

2.  The wills I draft always have provisions permitting an executor to access the digital accounts and digital assets of a deceased individual.

3.  The request to obtain data from a deceased user's account does not apply to the NSA - they already have it.

This Was a Good Idea?

Claudia Cohen was an NYC gossip columnist whose family owned Hudson News outlets.  She was married to Ron Perelman, an NYC business tycoon, from 1985-1994.   Their daughter was born in 1990.  Claudia died of cancer in 2007.   Shortly before her death, she changed her will to name her ex-husband as executor of her estate which was estimated to be worth $68 million.

As executor of her estate, Claudia's ex-husband has been locked in battles with her brother and now deceased father for the past five years.   The battles range from the valuation of Claudia's interest in the family business which was set by a partnership agreement, an alleged broken oral promise to leave Claudia half of her dad's estate, and whether Claudia's dad needed a guardian.  The estate has lost all of these battles and incurred at least $5 million in legal fees, if not more, plus had to repay a $10 million loan to Claudia's father.

Several points:

1.   A value set in a partnership agreement or buy sell agreement will be enforced, even it is not the true value of the interest.

2.  It is nearly impossible to win a law suit to enforce a promise to leave someone an inheritance.

3.  It is never a good idea to name a former spouse as executor or trustee, much less one embroiled in litigation with 2 ex-wives at the time of the designation and known for being disputatious.

4.  Claudia's daughter will be fine financially even if her inheritance from her mother is entirely consumed by legal fees.  Her father is reportedly worth $1.8 billion.

O Revelations!

Willa Cather, author of "O Pioneers", died in 1947.  She purportedly destroyed much of her private correspondence and left instructions in her will forbidding the post-mortem publication of any remaining letters.  For nearly 70 years, her executors adhered to her wishes.  However, with the death of her nephew and second executor in 2011, her wishes are no longer being followed and a book containing 566 of the surviving 3,0000 letters will be published next month.  There are various reasons given for her request to not publish the correspondence - a desire for privacy, a late life depression, and a desire to conceal her lesbianism about which scholars have speculated for years. 

Several points:

1.  3000 letters survived?  She needed a heavy duty shredder.

2.  The best way to ensure post-death privacy is to destroy the letters while alive.  After a generation or two, those interested in preserving her wishes will have died and successors will be more motivated by money than her wishes. 

3.  In an electronic age not prone to letter writing, most people will not be confronted with this issue in the future.  No one will want to read a series of texts. 

4.  Who needs to speculate about the sexual orientation of a woman who called herself William in college and who lived with the same woman for 39 years?

5.  I did not enjoy reading her work in American Literature classes so I will not be pre-ordering the book of her letters from Amazon. 

Tell Family Members About a Will?

Telling family members about estate plans is a delicate matter.  I recommend the following approach.

1.  Obtain the consent of executor, trustee, and guardian to serve.  Do not surprise them with their responsibilities at death.

2.  Inform the executor of the location of the documents, but do not necessarily provide a copy if they contain provisions that will upset family harmony if known.

3.  For adult children who will inherit a significant sum of money, do not inform them of the amount but suggest to them that they seek financial advice and work with the family financial advisor. 

4.  Related to No. 2, by all means if a child is being disinherited, or if assets are being left to charity instead of to nieces and nephews, do not inform anyone.  If they find out, the disinherited heirs could make the client's life miserable and make the client wish for a hastened death.  

Digital Assets (Heavy Sigh Version)

At the risk of beating the dead horse about digital assets, some articles need to be mocked.  This recent WSJ article deserves derision for making a simple topic - how to access on-line accounts of a deceased person - stupidly complex. 

Suggestions include the creation of a social media will with a review of each web site's policies, the nomination of a digital or social media executor, and creation of digital asset trust to avoid those assets going through the probate process.  My responses to these ideas, in order are:  a standard will suffices, the executor should be able to address on-line issues and if he can not he should not be the executor dealing with assets with a monetary value, and only an idiot would list a digital account as a probate asset to be disposed of.  I suspect that some people think that there is money to be made from that idiot by selling him a trust that he does not need. 

My advice remains creating a list of passwords accessible at death by the executor.  Simple is better and often times less expensive.