The need for estate plans

I am in the middle of one of the most absurd and unfortunate probate cases I have seen in my career, and I want to share the details to show how a little bit of prior planning could have made lasting differences for these clients.

The case involves a husband (for this purpose we will call him “Dagwood”) and wife (“Blondie”)with only one surviving adult child (“Chip”). Dagwood and Blondie farm in one of the surrounding communities. They had two children, but their youngest died in a car accident a few years ago. The death of the youngest sent shockwaves through the family. First, Chip was unable to cope with the loss of his brother and he started having alcohol and temper problems. Next Dagwood and Blondie saw what kind of a nightmare probate could be after his son’s death, so Dagwood didn’t want the others in his family to have to go through the same when he or Blondie died.

Dagwood thought the best way to solve the problem of probate was to put everything in joint tenancy with rights of survivorship, but he knew that if he just named himself and Blondie, it wouldn’t pass to Chip. He solved this by removing Blondie from all of his farms and directly naming Chip as the only other co-owner. This is where the problem really starts to develop.

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The next problem that developed is that Dagwood developed cancer. He died shortly thereafter leaving Blondie as a grieving widow. Shortly after his dad died, Chip started having issues with Blondie, his mother, and her guidance on how he should try to straighten out his life (seek alcohol treatment, stop being abusive to the women in his life). Chip used his ultimate trump card and is in the process of trying to kick his own mother out of her long-time home because Chip is now the record owner, due to the poor use of joint tenancy by Dagwood.

So the ultimate situation I am in now and trying to prevent is that a grieving widow has no rights to the home she and her husband occupied because the husband wanted to avoid probate with his assets. He didn’t avoid probate because we are now trying to get any spousal rights available, but he sure has created a rift in the family he left his legacy to.

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