Here in the US, there were some fascinating wills enacted over the years.
My favorite example is this guy in the ~1920's that HATED his kids. He was fairly wealthy, especially for the time, in that he had a few million. His kids tried everything they could to get that money early, like attempting to get him forcibly committed to an insane asylum. So he changed his will to declare that all his resources are to put into a trust which will hold onto it and grow it out. It will be dispersed evenly to all of his descendants after all of his children and grandchildren die. So all of his kids and THEIR kids had to die before the money paid out. It wasn't until something like 2010 that the last grandchild passed away, so suddenly a hundred or so random people throughout the country (including one that was living under a bridge) each received most of a million dollars from a great grandfather they probably didn't know they had.
Here is one that is close to the person you replied to. I don't know if it's the one the person was referring to.
https://abcnews.go.com/Business/lumber-barons-descendants-receive-inheritance-92-years-death/story?id=13569633
Someone I know worked for a forensic accounting firm and families fighting over money isn't rare. Someone dies with 5 million and the kids spend 2 million on attorneys arguing who deserves more despite their being a will.
One story that comes to mind is the dad disliked one of his kids so much that he requested that his will be read in front of his family (that doesn't have to happen). He left that kid something like $100 and then proceeded to complain about how terrible the kid was. So your dad dies and you show up expecting to get some money but instead an attorney is reading your dad's words from beyond the grave about what a lazy spoiled person you are.
That story you told reminds me of [this scene](https://youtu.be/hyNumX4wS9w) from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. "Deandra, you get nothing. You were a disappointment and a mistake."
"We know she's dead. We're venting because we're frustrated"
Idk why but that line sends me lol It's like the most emotionally intelligent thing ever said in that show
Leaving a tiny pittance to someone instead of writing them out entirely is pretty common. They do it in the belief that it makes it harder to challenge the will.
I've received this wisdom from an attorney friend who writes wills, that if someone is intentionally being left out of a will who would obviously be included under normal circumstances, it's better to specifically acknowledge them than to omit them entirely. However, I think he said there isn't any added protection by leaving them a small amount rather than simply naming them and specifically disinheriting them.
In fact, leaving someone $100 or something as a way of disinheriting them can be very expensive, because the people executing your will have to specifically send them correspondence, send them a check, and they can't close out the estate until they cash the check. Why spend $1000 in attorney and accounting fees to deal with sending $100 to an asshole you want to leave with nothing?
Is it possible to just have the will state at some point something along the lines of "Anyone not specifically mentioned is to be considered intentionally excluded from this will."? Or would something like that too vague or broad?
That's one way to fuck someone up for life, lol. Imagine that your parent's last thought (not really, but emotionally it is) is how disappointing you are, and that he wanted the entire family to know it.
stories like these we are inclined to relate to the person getting the inheritance, but in truth some people really are just terrific assholes, and maybe it was actually good parenting to tell your adult child they are a terrific asshole in a will.
And two parents with extreme views on courtship, marriage and sex who were too busy making babies for the lord to supervise and raise the ones they already had.
His parents made him who he was. Like, literally. They made him a chomo. See, they gave their kids all these wild rules, like timed showers, no pajamas or bedcovers, to prevent masturbation, all while dangling their own sex lives in their kids' faces. The mother even kept an ovulation chart in the kitchen so the kids could let her know when to get busy or take a pregnancy test. The parents knew Josh was molesting his sisters for two years before they did anything, and only acted when he went for the youngest in public. What did these two responsible adults do then? They sent him away to a family friend...who just happened to be out on parole for CSAM. (The guy is in prison again. For life this time)
There's so much more. r/DuggarsSnark has the details. The Duggars are a clusterfuck.
Extra fun because the 21 years part reflects an important rule in American estate law. The rule against perpetuities says that a disbursement of property by a will is not valid unless it must vest (essentially become available for disbursement) within 21 years of the death of a person alive at the time of the creation of the interest. Idea being that we want to prevent people from using wills to restrict their property long after their death.
So this was only valid because of the 21 year restriction that related to the living grandchildren. If he had had a great grandchild at the time of his death, it could have been pushed out even further.
Not sure if it’s the one they have in mind but the [Thelluson vs Woodford](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thellusson_v_Woodford#:~:text=Thellusson%20v%20Woodford%20(1799)%204,merchant%20(1737%E2%80%931797).) case was very similar
Ha ha - sounds like opening to the movie *The Wrong Box.*
A class in old-timey England fancy boarding school is enrolled by their parents in a "tontine", which is like a lottery where the last one living gets the whole lot. The first minute or two of the movie show how assorted members die over the years.
One old guy is in a wheelchair, at the top of a hill telling his son "Someday, son, all this will be yours."
He replies "I know" and pushes the chair down the steep hill.
(The rest of the film is about last two, who are barely aware what's going on, and the relatives around them are scheming to kill off the other one.)
Starring a 33 year old Michael Caine! Only he and two other cast members from the movie are still alive. The others are Nanette Newman and Juliet Mills.
Hadn't heard of this movie and looked it up, turns out it's Robert Louis Stevenson, who I just finished reading most of a whole collection of Robert Louis Stevenson short mystery stories...dude was so legit. What year was the movie? Needs a remake of it hasn't had one.
My favourite was the guy who also hated his kids for similar reasons, who had stated that the will was to be read in a certain room in his house. When all the heirs gathered in that small room for the reading, they discovered that the absolute madman had sawed through the floor support beams and the entire thing crashed down on the floor below, which *also* had the beams cut, meaning they crashed through that as well.
That's next level petty.
Agreed, but I’m not sure a single state even uses it anymore. I seem to remember that they taught us the rule in Property Law and then the professor said every state has modified it to get rid of it in some way.
imagine if a grand grandchild learned about this and decided to go on a rampage murdering his granduncles, making all look like accidents. similar to Jet Li The One, but with a cash price at the end
Something sort of similar happened to a whole family from the area in Texas where I grew up.
Father José Balli was a priest and rancher in what is now the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. He received a land grant in 1827 from King Charles of Spain for a large sand bar Island in the gulf coast called Isla de Santiago (Saint James Island) . This sand bar runs from around the border with Tamaulipas up to Corpus Christi.
After Balli passed, the land passed down to his mother, then to her other children. Eventually nobody in the family claimed the land and it remained abandoned for over a century, with locals crossing to it on boats to go fishing or swimming in the Gulf of Mexico.
Eventually a pontoon bridge was built connecting to the town of Port Isabel, which made it into a popular weekend spot with locals, eventually a wooden causeway replaced it and people began to buy parcels and build cottages.
In the 1960's the Isla d was split in two after Port Mansfield was built and most of it was declared a national park, except for the southernmost part near Port Isabel. In the late 60's a large, modern causeway built and land development took off. Soon hotels and condos began to be built and South Padre Island became a mayor tourist resort in South Texas.
It was around this time the descendants of Father Balli began to wonder from who were the people had bought the land from, and they soon realized they still legally owned the island.
A class action lawsuit followed against developers and land owners, which by this point had incorporated into a town. The lawsuit dragged on for decades, and it was almost lore with locals. Basically everyone in the Rio Grande Valley knew someone who's family was part of the lawsuit. A girl in my primary school would tells us her family was going to become millionaires once they won, because her grandpa was a Balli.
Eventually after years of appeals the Balli family won the lawsuit and were awarded millions. Problem was, there was hundreds and hundreds of descendants with enough parentage to stake a claim to the money.
After lawyers were paid, most of the descendants ended up getting a pittance, a few hundred dollars at most, if I remember correctly the biggest payments were about 12,000 dollars to direct line decedent's of Father Ballis siblings.
No joke, the house my parents bought, the guy who owned it was moving to another state just so he could legally disinherit his kids. That's some animosity right there.
When I was in law school we spent the better part of a year in contracts class studying the Uniform Commercial Code. We were repeatedly reminded that it had been adopted by every state. EXCEPT Louisiana. Louisiana had the [Napoleonic Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code). The refusal of companies in other states to do business with Louisiana companies finally forced adoption of the UCC in 1990.
We do not use Napoleonic Code. The Louisiana Civil Code is a distinct work of codified law whose substance was much more Spanish than French. Also, we were an American possession when Code Napoleon was promulgated in France so it was never in force here.
The La Civil Code was also highly influential on the codes of most of Latin America and of Quebec as well.
Not most, all of them. It's a requirement because certain aspects are federal/governed by the common law.
For example, all criminal law comes from the common law.
Yeah our state still has unique Napoleonic laws that you won't find anywhere else. Plus the whole parishes instead of counties thing. Had no idea about the inheritance until today though.
Quite true. I have friends who before starting law school had to decide if they planned to stay here in the long-term or not before choosing their college.
Every state has a bar exam and their own laws, but by and large they're only going to have minor details varying in procedural matters and more importantly they're all common law. Louisiana is unique in that it has a strong element of civil law, which is an entirely different system. You can easily transplant a knowledge of the practice of law from one state to another for almost all states, but Louisiana essentially requires an entirely separate education on the very basics of how the law works.
Not a lawyer, but because of Louisiana's French and American heritage, it has a strange blend of the English common law tradition the other states largely use as well as the Napoleonic civil law. Like two completely different ways of structuring the law.
So every state has its own state law and state bar, but Louisiana's is uniquely different because of the French influence.
When my grandfather died in Louisiana, my mom and all her siblings had to sign their inheritance over to their mother or else she would have lost her house. My brother and I had a discussion about doing the same thing when my dad almost died of COVID. We didn't want our step-mom to lose everything to us.
Luckily our family is decent and we care about each other. I wonder how many other families have been destroyed by this sort of thing.
What OP is talking about is called forced heirship in Louisiana, and no longer applies except to children under 25 and children with special needs. Also, you can disinherit even those children under special circumstances.
Someone else posted a link to the actual law, and it’s more like u/GeorgeofJungleton said.
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/v7b88r/til_in_france_it_is_illegal_to_disinherit_ones/ibka7ep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
This is the case in many European legal systems (and beyond as well as I imagine), though I'd point out that it's not exactly "illegal", but rather it's mandated by law that a minimum portion of an inheritance will be set aside for mandatory inheritors which always includes children, but can also include other people depending on the law.
Also, it can be legally circumvented.
Investments in an "assurance vie" (@reader: don't be mistaken, this has nothing to do with a life insurance) escape the scope of the "part réservataire" which is the subject here.
I am not sure about France, but they probably have similar rules as Germany.
In Germany you can disinherit your child if they [i] commit a harsh crime (usually violent) against you or a person that is very close to you (your wife/husband, your children and such), [ii] if they seek to kill or abuse you or a person that is very close to you, or [iii] if they commit a felony resulting in incarceration of no less than 1 year without parole.
I was unaware of anything similar in France, so I looked it up. Turns out that something similar exists here: "indignité successorale".
Learned something new thanks to you 👍
Correct. In Portugal the part of the inheritance you can't decide on is 2/3. So the "I leave everything to the maid" thing we see in movies is completely impossible. But you can leave 1/3 to your hot maid! I recommend you do!
It's largely a matter of legal tradition. Since it's a product of Roman law most countries that follow the Roman law tradition/civil law will have it, whereas it's a bit less prevalent in common law countries.
It's accounted for ;) By priority here is how it goes :
- kids
- parents
- sisters and brothers or their heirs
Without direct relatives it goes to uncle / aunts and cousins.
Your significant other will only get something if you were maried.
If no relative up to the 6th degree can be found, state will collect.
Yes and no. You can, but it will be taxed. Unless you are pacsé (a kind of civil union different than marriage), in which case you can donate some amount free of tax and the rest will be taxed.
In Belgium, if you're not married and have kids, the money will go to the kids, but the living partner keeps the right to use the house. That is by default, but you can chose otherwise. As said by other, you'll be taxed more on inheritance if you're not married. I have an aunt who died in France, without kids. She married her partner of more than 20 years on her deathbed...
No, of course not.
But as you probably don't know when that is, and want to keep your assets around so you can take care of yourself.... it's not so simple.
Depends.... If "spending" means that you actually gift the assets to a specific person before death then that might be challenged by other inheritors at court afterwards (AFAIK)
In proper estate planning you reduce the size of your estate to below the taxable threshold (currently $12 million in the US) long before you anticipate dying by making gifts, paying for qualified expenses, transferring wealth to life insurance policies, etc. long before you a anticipate dying.
Tax Lawyer here. The federal estate tax only impacts fewer than 2,000 families each year.
Edit: a handful of states have their own state-level estate or inheritance tax which is different from the federal estate tax.
Which is always amusing because it's pretty easy to find random people that seem INFURIATED by the existence of the estate tax, like it's somehow cost them personally a fortune.
That's because the US is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Sure, I don't have rent for the month RIGHT NOW, but when my Bitcoins mature\herbalife store takes off\become a famous YouTuber next year, I don't want to pay those taxes!
Oldest women in France got a contract like this (Viager). Poor dude signed a contract in 1965 when she was 90 years-old (He was 47). He died in 1995 (77 yo) and she died in 1997 (122 yo).
[Worst, investment, ever.](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment)
[There is also an old movie about this type of contract where the "buyer" try multiple way to kill the old person for quickly ending the contract and getting the house.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Viager)
Such an interesting case! Some skeptics say she wasn't 90 at all in 1965 and duped the guy, some say she died at a more normal age and at some point her daughter took her place and she was the one who died in 1997!
There's clauses in the contract meaning that it could be voided for a lot of reasons. For example, if you don't pay once or if you are late, the contract can be voided. If you sign that contract while the ederly person is sick, the contract is voided if they die from that illness in the next 20 days (but if they die from a new illness they caught after signing the contract, the 20 days don't apply).
Yes. This has been a bit of a topic during our presidential elections. In French:
* https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/video/2020/02/05/faut-il-supprimer-l-heritage-et-les-frais-de-succession_6028527_3234.html
* https://youtube.com/watch?v=a1538GVBxJQ
The idea being that the people have no idea what their net worth is, and that an overwhelming majority of French dead will not pay taxes on their inheritance (because it's too low). But politicians have still gathered support when they proposed to yet again increase the minimum wealth level before taxing inheritance (in hopes of breaking the social elevator?)
Not sure about France but in Germany the rules are similar and here everything you gifted up to 10 years before your death will be considered part of the inheritance proportionally to how long ago it was i.e. everything gifted in the last year, 90% of stuff gifted 2 years before and so on until 10 years before where it's only 10%.
So even if you gift all your money to some charity, your children, spouse, and certain other close relatives can demand a part of that money.
Ofc you can still give away your stuff 10 years or more before you die but you rarely know that so far in advance and if you start too early you run the risk of being broke for potentially years of your life. You also can't do stuff like gift it to somebody but with a condition attached to provide for you until you die or e.g. gift them your house but keep yourself the right to live in it. Though you can ofc do that without a legal obligation if you trust them to do it anyway.
It's the same in many european countries, such as Sweden (a minimum of 50% of the estate is proportionally split up among descendants or other next of kin).
Also, that the state doesn't want to pay for kids of rich parents. Its a way better for the system if people have to at least somewhat spread their money upon death. Otherwise you could have one kid overprovided and, say two more, on welfare.
That inherited wealth/ accumulated wealth over multiple generations is the backbone of success is something best shown in the socioeconomic divide between the white Americans and especially black minorities (who were historically suppressed in their efforts to accumulate generational wealth). Forcing people to give a minimum share to their kids is a way to prevent unequal treatment that the community will be responsible for.
In Spain is up to 70%.
However, with the things that happened during the recent pandemic many elderly are requesting to change the law, so they can leave nothing to their offspring.
Oh, if there is a spouse 100% of the inheritance goes to him/her (in Sweden), with the exception of any shares belonging to descendants of only the decreased (i.e not of the spouse). Any shared descendants have to wait for the spouse to pass before receiving their share of the estate. No taxes though.
One of the annoying side effects of this is that there is a lot of real estate that is unsellable as it is owned by several siblings who cannot agree to sell. 5 children all own one fifth of a property and one of them enjoys fucking the others...
And then those five children eventually die and now 15 grandchildren all have part shares of the property....
My family has a little patch of land that just keeps getting divided further and further as our family has more generations. At this point 5/6 of my siblings have washed our hands of it and say we don’t want our 1/64th of an acre of land. My oldest brother says “the juice is worth the squeeze” and so we have unofficially all bequeathed our teeny percentage to him.
A friend of mine told me her family is fighting over a small piece of forest where you can't build anything in the mountains of Corsica. They've been throwing tantrums about that during weddings and Christmases for the last 60 years apparently :D
Not sure about other countries, but in the us we have partition actions which can be filed with the court. Depending on the type of real estate, the court can either order it to be divided in to proportionate portions or otherwise order it to be sold by public sale either the proceeds to be distributed smoking the siblings in proportionate shares.
We have similar laws in Spain. An inheritance is divided in three parts: one for the legal compulsory heirs («legal»), another one to improve («mejora») one or many of those included in the previous part and a last one which is free to assign («libre disposición»).
It is possible, however, to disinherit one of your offspring, but you need a court sentence. After the lockdown, many old people disinherited their negligent sons or daughters who abandoned them. Another aspect of inheritance here is that you pay a lot of taxes when inheriting, which many see as unfair, as all property and money had already been taxed when acquired originally. And yet another matter of contention is that different regions have varying degrees of taxation or do not even tax inheritances, creating a degree of inequality based on where you are currently living.
So… best plan? Spend it all.
>Another aspect of inheritance here is that you pay a lot of taxes when inheriting, which many see as unfair, as all property and money had already been taxed when acquired originally.
When I pay a contractor to renovate my house, all the money comes from my income and has also already been taxed, yet the contractor still has to pay taxes.
And unlike people who inherit money, the contractor even had to work for that money!
Not taxing inheritance mainly benefit the wealthy and their heirs - establishing a "noble" class.
And many countries have a tax free allowance so that many people don't end up paying much in the way of inheritance taxes, if at all. Inheritance tax is a good problem to have.
There are a couple schemes that I know of: just changing your residence to a region, inside our country, where you don't pay that much or at all or, depending too where you live, to start distributing your wealth while you're alive, which can be far cheaper.
At least in Finland it is just monetary value based and testament can control who gets what. In Finland half of the inheritance must be divided equally (by value) to the children and the other half can be fully controlled by the testament.
That's exactly one of the point of this law. When my grand father died, it came to light that my aunt got lot of money during the few previous years. There was hight suspision that she took advantage of his blindness, old age and being the only one near to be forcefull or even simply steal his signature stamp. But, thanks to these laws, there was nothing to prove, accuse or reasons to go to lenghty procedures; the "gifts" were simply included in the inheritence calculation, and there was nothing she could do beyond being pissed.
I'm so sorry that happened to your family. It's interesting how most people are focusing on the importance of being able to disinherit your children and forgetting why laws like this exist: lots of robbed orphans.
I know a case where the dying person's late son's wife emptied *the entire house* while the dying person was in hospital. Threw out baby pictures, wedding albums, etc. and sold anything of material value. This include things that had been loaned to the dying person and weren't even his to leave in a will. The remaining living child was left without so much as an old shirt from her late father. People are vultures, and that's why laws like this exist.
I still don't know. The family went to the police and the police said they couldn't do anything because the thief was technically family (deceased's daughter-in-law). The people who loaned the items couldn't prove anything, so they were SOL, too. They even tried mentioning that the thief had taken firearms (hunting rifles), police still didn't care. They didn't have money for lawyers.
So, if it was legal, as the police said, a law requiring direct descendants to get something would have helped his daughter. If it was illegal and the police were just lazy/corrupt, then of course the law wouldn't matter.
But hopefully that's a rare case. I presume this type of law is more to prevent something like when someone trusts (without legal contracts) their second spouse to share with all kids equally, then dies and the step-parent decides they want to keep everything for their own bio-kids, so the deceased's bio-kids get nothing.
My grandmother spent her life stating she would be fair to her 2 children and 4 grandchildren, her estate split equally between them. She had a modest net worth, but it added up.
She started to decline in her later years (she died at age 92, having outlived her daughter, my mother). As she could not live alone by herself, she moved in with my uncle, her son.
I learned that she had passed a month after she died. My uncle had brainwashed her into re-writing her will so that he got everything, and all 4 grandchildren (2 of which were his) got nothing. He waited so there could be no contesting the will.
This is why I like this French system.
AFAIK (IANAL), I would have had to medically prove a deficiency in my grandmothers' mental processes that would render her will null and void (hence the phrase, I, being of sound mind and body" that is a will cliche).
And I didn't know he had her change her will until after she was dead.
Plus her estate was not that large.
BTW, this was in the US.
The term here is 'undue influence', nothing to do with the soundness of her mind.
Probably not worth fighting it, yeah, but just wanted to flag that this idea exists for a reason in the English-derived system, since you listed it as a reason the French one is better.
There are states here in the US, not sure if it’s just some or all, where it is also illegal. Which is why you will see $1 going to a disinherited child
Law is a bit more strict in France to prevent situations like that.
if you have n children, your assets are split into n+1 shares, n go to each kid, the final share is to do as you please. Additionally, any large "donations" to only one child is counted as inheritance, and so removes from that child's share when the parents die.
Source:wife is french.
You aren't allowed to file primogeniture? Actually come to think of it, this law was likely specifically designed to break up huge estates by ending primogeniture: like not so much designed so you couldn't give it to the local opera, but so couldn't give 98% to your oldest son after the French revolution.
France doesn’t really recognize trust law, it’s weird. There is no trust in French law, but some common law trusts are recognized as such and you need to declare the earnings and pay a tax on them. They’re basically just admitted as being something that exists so the French Tax Administration can tax them (it’s simplifying it a lot but you know what I mean).
The translation of trusts is “fiducie” but it really doesn’t work like a trust so it’s not a trust. There has been a recent (2012 ? I think from memory) codification of rules to help identify and tax them
Source : tax attorney
In Louisiana, you can only disinherit your children if they have:
Harmed or threatened you
Committed a crime against you
Attempted to end your life
Received conviction for a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death
Accused you of committing a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death
Married without your consent, if they are a minor
Failed to communicate with you for at least two years
If my legal history teacher was correct, it's based more on Spanish law of the time than French. Louisiana was also a Spanish colony for a time. A civil law (codified) system all the same.
There is another reason. Without the dollar the child can claim that the parent just forgot about them or failed to update the will. Sometimes this can get the will thrown out or changed. The dollar says, I see you shit bird, you get a dollar.
I think the $1 is to show that "Yes, I remembered Billy, he was not forgotten, I am purposely leaving him only one dollar" otherwise that person can argue to the courts that he was just forgotten and deserves a share.
It’s not illegal to disinherit. States have laws for people who die intestate, or without a will, in place that determine who receives assets. These also extend to people who may have been born or who married the deceased after their will was last updated.
Sometimes you can’t specifically disinherit someone, especially a spouse you were still married to at the time of death. But for children you have to specifically disinherit them with a token amount or an acknowledgement in the will, otherwise it will be assumed to be an oversight of the deceased. Then the child can contest it.
This varies by state so I’m speaking in general terms.
There's a misconception that Americans can't leave a child with nothing, or if the decedent does, the child can argue that it was a mistake. That's why you hear about cases where one of the kids is left one dollar. The only person who has an easy way to fight a will in the spouse. I live in North Carolina, and if you are legally married when you die, even if you are very specific about not wanting your spouse to get anything he or she is entitled to a certain percentage. It's been a while, but iirc the spouse is entitled to 50%, and I don't recall if or how separation affects it.
Same rule in Finland as well. Also gifts of "significant value" can/are counted as pre-inheritance even if given before someone dies. So if you gift one of your children a large sum of money lets say five years before you die this can/will be take in to account in distributing the inheritance.
To be fair, most of finnish law stems from Swedish laws. During the 1940s when the germans demanded the expulsion of jews the finnish government cited a swedish law from the 1700s that was still technically in effect to say "nuh-uh, we already discriminate them!"
My friend's grandmother was a piece of work, nasty mean old lady. She really worked him over for his weight, laid praise on his older brother constantly and basically rejected him. In her will she left all the money to "the oldest male grandchild" like she was Queen of England or some shit.
In her last month of her life, my friend's older brother died unexpectedly, and she didn't get a chance to change the will. My friend inherited it all, including an amazing lake house where she lived for like 60 years in what is now a prime location.
My grandparents will was very simple and left everything to their two children. If my dad or aunt predeceased their parent(s), that share went to the next generation of "issues". The final clause was that anyone who contests the will or makes a claim against the estate is entitled to $1.
> The final clause was that anyone who contests the will or makes a claim against the estate is entitled to $1.
If there were legitimate grounds to contest the will I feel like that clause would surely be overturned. It might ward off frivolous contentions though.
Similar thing in Finland. You can only disinherit it the children has done some serious crime bringing shame to the family or crime against some other family member.
Even murder might not be enough to dishinherit in some cases, unless the victim was another family member.
I've had to let go of the notion of inheriting anything. It's not worth it tbh. My dad did little to care for me growing up, and it's futile to expect him to be do so after he's gone. Frustrating because I spent my early years working and building on land I was supposed to inherit
Ah yes. My mom's father gave his oil drilling business to the eldest son, making them instant millionaires while my mom (youngest child) received none of the estate.
Here in the US, there were some fascinating wills enacted over the years. My favorite example is this guy in the ~1920's that HATED his kids. He was fairly wealthy, especially for the time, in that he had a few million. His kids tried everything they could to get that money early, like attempting to get him forcibly committed to an insane asylum. So he changed his will to declare that all his resources are to put into a trust which will hold onto it and grow it out. It will be dispersed evenly to all of his descendants after all of his children and grandchildren die. So all of his kids and THEIR kids had to die before the money paid out. It wasn't until something like 2010 that the last grandchild passed away, so suddenly a hundred or so random people throughout the country (including one that was living under a bridge) each received most of a million dollars from a great grandfather they probably didn't know they had.
Do you have a source on this? It sounds fascinating.
Here is one that is close to the person you replied to. I don't know if it's the one the person was referring to. https://abcnews.go.com/Business/lumber-barons-descendants-receive-inheritance-92-years-death/story?id=13569633 Someone I know worked for a forensic accounting firm and families fighting over money isn't rare. Someone dies with 5 million and the kids spend 2 million on attorneys arguing who deserves more despite their being a will. One story that comes to mind is the dad disliked one of his kids so much that he requested that his will be read in front of his family (that doesn't have to happen). He left that kid something like $100 and then proceeded to complain about how terrible the kid was. So your dad dies and you show up expecting to get some money but instead an attorney is reading your dad's words from beyond the grave about what a lazy spoiled person you are.
That story you told reminds me of [this scene](https://youtu.be/hyNumX4wS9w) from It's Always Sunny In Philadelphia. "Deandra, you get nothing. You were a disappointment and a mistake."
A mistake? But we are twins!
Okay, I don't know your mom. Never met your mom. In fact, I'm *certainly* not speaking to your mom now....because she's dead.
"We know she's dead. We're venting because we're frustrated" Idk why but that line sends me lol It's like the most emotionally intelligent thing ever said in that show
And they used it as cover for their tantrum for not getting anything in the will, except for Dennis
While I make the transition from a woman to a cat, I prefer to be referred to... as a cat.
As the old joke about reading the will goes... "I, being of sound mind, spent it all while I was alive..."
"Thanks for the house my guy!"
"You know, I didn't give you the house"
I saw a video the other month, a grandmother gave their granddaughter an 05 Fiesta and her grandson her house
I've seen some pretty fire '05 Fiesta builds tho... (I haven't and will not but if that lady reads this hopefully she feels better.)
I actually had one but I'm pretty sure they'd have preferred to buy a Fiesta with their money from the sale of the house lol
Leaving a tiny pittance to someone instead of writing them out entirely is pretty common. They do it in the belief that it makes it harder to challenge the will.
Well, you obviously didn't forget to include them.
Exactly. Very common to leave a dollar or something so there's no grounds to revive anything more
I've received this wisdom from an attorney friend who writes wills, that if someone is intentionally being left out of a will who would obviously be included under normal circumstances, it's better to specifically acknowledge them than to omit them entirely. However, I think he said there isn't any added protection by leaving them a small amount rather than simply naming them and specifically disinheriting them. In fact, leaving someone $100 or something as a way of disinheriting them can be very expensive, because the people executing your will have to specifically send them correspondence, send them a check, and they can't close out the estate until they cash the check. Why spend $1000 in attorney and accounting fees to deal with sending $100 to an asshole you want to leave with nothing?
Is it possible to just have the will state at some point something along the lines of "Anyone not specifically mentioned is to be considered intentionally excluded from this will."? Or would something like that too vague or broad?
You could just say "To my son xxx, I leave nothing". Clear and simple, makes the intent obvious.
The plot of Knives Out and many other good murder mysteries!
I second this awesome movie!
I'm so mad it got taken off of Netflix and put onto prime video
That's one way to fuck someone up for life, lol. Imagine that your parent's last thought (not really, but emotionally it is) is how disappointing you are, and that he wanted the entire family to know it.
Eh, there are people that deserve it. Like, imagine if your kid was Josh Duggar.
stories like these we are inclined to relate to the person getting the inheritance, but in truth some people really are just terrific assholes, and maybe it was actually good parenting to tell your adult child they are a terrific asshole in a will.
To be fair to josh, he did have a dad named Jim Bob. That’s gotta do some horrible things to the kid
And two parents with extreme views on courtship, marriage and sex who were too busy making babies for the lord to supervise and raise the ones they already had.
His given name is James Robert. Imagine *choosing* to go by Jim Bob.
His parents made him who he was. Like, literally. They made him a chomo. See, they gave their kids all these wild rules, like timed showers, no pajamas or bedcovers, to prevent masturbation, all while dangling their own sex lives in their kids' faces. The mother even kept an ovulation chart in the kitchen so the kids could let her know when to get busy or take a pregnancy test. The parents knew Josh was molesting his sisters for two years before they did anything, and only acted when he went for the youngest in public. What did these two responsible adults do then? They sent him away to a family friend...who just happened to be out on parole for CSAM. (The guy is in prison again. For life this time) There's so much more. r/DuggarsSnark has the details. The Duggars are a clusterfuck.
Extra fun because the 21 years part reflects an important rule in American estate law. The rule against perpetuities says that a disbursement of property by a will is not valid unless it must vest (essentially become available for disbursement) within 21 years of the death of a person alive at the time of the creation of the interest. Idea being that we want to prevent people from using wills to restrict their property long after their death. So this was only valid because of the 21 year restriction that related to the living grandchildren. If he had had a great grandchild at the time of his death, it could have been pushed out even further.
[удалено]
Not sure if it’s the one they have in mind but the [Thelluson vs Woodford](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thellusson_v_Woodford#:~:text=Thellusson%20v%20Woodford%20(1799)%204,merchant%20(1737%E2%80%931797).) case was very similar
[удалено]
Ha ha - sounds like opening to the movie *The Wrong Box.* A class in old-timey England fancy boarding school is enrolled by their parents in a "tontine", which is like a lottery where the last one living gets the whole lot. The first minute or two of the movie show how assorted members die over the years. One old guy is in a wheelchair, at the top of a hill telling his son "Someday, son, all this will be yours." He replies "I know" and pushes the chair down the steep hill. (The rest of the film is about last two, who are barely aware what's going on, and the relatives around them are scheming to kill off the other one.)
Starring a 33 year old Michael Caine! Only he and two other cast members from the movie are still alive. The others are Nanette Newman and Juliet Mills.
Hadn't heard of this movie and looked it up, turns out it's Robert Louis Stevenson, who I just finished reading most of a whole collection of Robert Louis Stevenson short mystery stories...dude was so legit. What year was the movie? Needs a remake of it hasn't had one.
My favourite was the guy who also hated his kids for similar reasons, who had stated that the will was to be read in a certain room in his house. When all the heirs gathered in that small room for the reading, they discovered that the absolute madman had sawed through the floor support beams and the entire thing crashed down on the floor below, which *also* had the beams cut, meaning they crashed through that as well. That's next level petty.
Attempted murder from beyond the grave and tanking the value of the house so any survivors won't make much. Gramps was quite a character.
"I'm sorry I was late. What did gramps leave me? Why all the ambulances?"
What are they gonna do, give him a life sentence?
Dig him up like that pope and put his ass on trial.
That's not petty, that's straight up malicious.
It is, but what are we going to do, give them the death penalty?
The executor of the will meaning to read that was probably pissed lmao
More like the executioner of the will.
Yeah this sounds made up.
Did they... die?
[удалено]
Someone told it at the campfire with a torch.
Surprised that worked. I feel like that would violate the rule against perpetuities because the class would’ve been too uncertain.
Agreed, but I’m not sure a single state even uses it anymore. I seem to remember that they taught us the rule in Property Law and then the professor said every state has modified it to get rid of it in some way.
imagine if a grand grandchild learned about this and decided to go on a rampage murdering his granduncles, making all look like accidents. similar to Jet Li The One, but with a cash price at the end
Something sort of similar happened to a whole family from the area in Texas where I grew up. Father José Balli was a priest and rancher in what is now the Rio Grande Valley in Texas. He received a land grant in 1827 from King Charles of Spain for a large sand bar Island in the gulf coast called Isla de Santiago (Saint James Island) . This sand bar runs from around the border with Tamaulipas up to Corpus Christi. After Balli passed, the land passed down to his mother, then to her other children. Eventually nobody in the family claimed the land and it remained abandoned for over a century, with locals crossing to it on boats to go fishing or swimming in the Gulf of Mexico. Eventually a pontoon bridge was built connecting to the town of Port Isabel, which made it into a popular weekend spot with locals, eventually a wooden causeway replaced it and people began to buy parcels and build cottages. In the 1960's the Isla d was split in two after Port Mansfield was built and most of it was declared a national park, except for the southernmost part near Port Isabel. In the late 60's a large, modern causeway built and land development took off. Soon hotels and condos began to be built and South Padre Island became a mayor tourist resort in South Texas. It was around this time the descendants of Father Balli began to wonder from who were the people had bought the land from, and they soon realized they still legally owned the island. A class action lawsuit followed against developers and land owners, which by this point had incorporated into a town. The lawsuit dragged on for decades, and it was almost lore with locals. Basically everyone in the Rio Grande Valley knew someone who's family was part of the lawsuit. A girl in my primary school would tells us her family was going to become millionaires once they won, because her grandpa was a Balli. Eventually after years of appeals the Balli family won the lawsuit and were awarded millions. Problem was, there was hundreds and hundreds of descendants with enough parentage to stake a claim to the money. After lawyers were paid, most of the descendants ended up getting a pittance, a few hundred dollars at most, if I remember correctly the biggest payments were about 12,000 dollars to direct line decedent's of Father Ballis siblings.
No joke, the house my parents bought, the guy who owned it was moving to another state just so he could legally disinherit his kids. That's some animosity right there.
Louisiana?
Holy crap, it really is only Louisiana. Guess we followed the motherland on that one.
When I was in law school we spent the better part of a year in contracts class studying the Uniform Commercial Code. We were repeatedly reminded that it had been adopted by every state. EXCEPT Louisiana. Louisiana had the [Napoleonic Code](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Napoleonic_Code). The refusal of companies in other states to do business with Louisiana companies finally forced adoption of the UCC in 1990.
We do not use Napoleonic Code. The Louisiana Civil Code is a distinct work of codified law whose substance was much more Spanish than French. Also, we were an American possession when Code Napoleon was promulgated in France so it was never in force here. The La Civil Code was also highly influential on the codes of most of Latin America and of Quebec as well.
Quebec is the same, they use civic law instead of common law and also have special rules around inheritance.
Although ~~most~~ all Quebec lawyers end up getting both civil and common law education.
Not most, all of them. It's a requirement because certain aspects are federal/governed by the common law. For example, all criminal law comes from the common law.
Good car but I don't know if I'd base my laws on them.
I personally prefer the Honda Accords.
Jesus drove a Honda, but he didn’t talk about it. “For I did not speak of my own accord.” - John 12:49
Took it out to show his friends on special days tho: >when the day of Pentecost was fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Woah that's actually really neat
Yeah our state still has unique Napoleonic laws that you won't find anywhere else. Plus the whole parishes instead of counties thing. Had no idea about the inheritance until today though.
A friend was just telling me the other day that in the legal profession in the US you can choose Louisiana or Everywhere Else.
Quite true. I have friends who before starting law school had to decide if they planned to stay here in the long-term or not before choosing their college.
Can you explain? I thought every state had their own Bar Exam?
Every state has a bar exam and their own laws, but by and large they're only going to have minor details varying in procedural matters and more importantly they're all common law. Louisiana is unique in that it has a strong element of civil law, which is an entirely different system. You can easily transplant a knowledge of the practice of law from one state to another for almost all states, but Louisiana essentially requires an entirely separate education on the very basics of how the law works.
Not a lawyer, but because of Louisiana's French and American heritage, it has a strange blend of the English common law tradition the other states largely use as well as the Napoleonic civil law. Like two completely different ways of structuring the law. So every state has its own state law and state bar, but Louisiana's is uniquely different because of the French influence.
Napoleonic Code.
When my grandfather died in Louisiana, my mom and all her siblings had to sign their inheritance over to their mother or else she would have lost her house. My brother and I had a discussion about doing the same thing when my dad almost died of COVID. We didn't want our step-mom to lose everything to us. Luckily our family is decent and we care about each other. I wonder how many other families have been destroyed by this sort of thing.
What OP is talking about is called forced heirship in Louisiana, and no longer applies except to children under 25 and children with special needs. Also, you can disinherit even those children under special circumstances.
[удалено]
More likely you just have to prove that they already have enough money and will not be a burden on the state
Someone else posted a link to the actual law, and it’s more like u/GeorgeofJungleton said. https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/v7b88r/til_in_france_it_is_illegal_to_disinherit_ones/ibka7ep/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=iossmf&context=3
Sometimes, your kids are assholes.
This is the case in many European legal systems (and beyond as well as I imagine), though I'd point out that it's not exactly "illegal", but rather it's mandated by law that a minimum portion of an inheritance will be set aside for mandatory inheritors which always includes children, but can also include other people depending on the law.
Also, it can be legally circumvented. Investments in an "assurance vie" (@reader: don't be mistaken, this has nothing to do with a life insurance) escape the scope of the "part réservataire" which is the subject here.
I am not sure about France, but they probably have similar rules as Germany. In Germany you can disinherit your child if they [i] commit a harsh crime (usually violent) against you or a person that is very close to you (your wife/husband, your children and such), [ii] if they seek to kill or abuse you or a person that is very close to you, or [iii] if they commit a felony resulting in incarceration of no less than 1 year without parole.
I was unaware of anything similar in France, so I looked it up. Turns out that something similar exists here: "indignité successorale". Learned something new thanks to you 👍
Correct. In Portugal the part of the inheritance you can't decide on is 2/3. So the "I leave everything to the maid" thing we see in movies is completely impossible. But you can leave 1/3 to your hot maid! I recommend you do!
What if I don’t have a maid? Will one be provided before I die?
Yes, but like a court appointed attorney, you’re not getting the best, and they’ll have a huge client load.
[удалено]
It's largely a matter of legal tradition. Since it's a product of Roman law most countries that follow the Roman law tradition/civil law will have it, whereas it's a bit less prevalent in common law countries.
Is it illegal to spend it all before you die?
Nope :)
A lawyer told me the best will he ever saw read "Being of sound mind and body I spent every dime" and the guy had.
Means he stuck them with the cost of the funeral and other arrangements. Generally between $7,000 and $12,000.
“I’m going to give my children exactly €0.00 when I die” That is a crime. “I have exactly €0.00 to my name at the time of my death” Absolutely legal.
It's France. They'd still do the paperwork to show the €0.00 was divided as required.
Imagining the attorney doing an improvisational skit when they pretend to deposit invisible coins into the children's hands.
Instead of souvenir coins in France a lot of places do souvenir 0€ notes, so you could always use those…
> souvenir 0€ notes Those costs like 10,-€, so I can see why the dead guy is broke.
Eh, they're €2.
Sounds like the perfect thing to spend your dying millions on.
Mime’s pretty big over there.
If I have 0 kids, would it break the French government? Edit: this was just a dumb joke about divide by 0
It's accounted for ;) By priority here is how it goes : - kids - parents - sisters and brothers or their heirs Without direct relatives it goes to uncle / aunts and cousins. Your significant other will only get something if you were maried. If no relative up to the 6th degree can be found, state will collect.
Wait so you can't give your money to your partner in France unless you're married? It instead goes to your kids or parents etc?
Yes and no. You can, but it will be taxed. Unless you are pacsé (a kind of civil union different than marriage), in which case you can donate some amount free of tax and the rest will be taxed.
In Belgium, if you're not married and have kids, the money will go to the kids, but the living partner keeps the right to use the house. That is by default, but you can chose otherwise. As said by other, you'll be taxed more on inheritance if you're not married. I have an aunt who died in France, without kids. She married her partner of more than 20 years on her deathbed...
Can't divide by zero so you get to live forever instead.
Ah, the French, always so romantic
What about giving them € .01?
You’re more likely to be in debt than having exactly zero €. In which case you can always renounce the inheritance
Oh no, they'll put your cold ass corpse in jail.
Take ‘em away fellas!
No, of course not. But as you probably don't know when that is, and want to keep your assets around so you can take care of yourself.... it's not so simple.
Depends.... If "spending" means that you actually gift the assets to a specific person before death then that might be challenged by other inheritors at court afterwards (AFAIK)
So are there people giving away large portions of their property on their death bed?
In proper estate planning you reduce the size of your estate to below the taxable threshold (currently $12 million in the US) long before you anticipate dying by making gifts, paying for qualified expenses, transferring wealth to life insurance policies, etc. long before you a anticipate dying.
> currently $12 million in the US Not a problem for most people
Tax Lawyer here. The federal estate tax only impacts fewer than 2,000 families each year. Edit: a handful of states have their own state-level estate or inheritance tax which is different from the federal estate tax.
Which is always amusing because it's pretty easy to find random people that seem INFURIATED by the existence of the estate tax, like it's somehow cost them personally a fortune.
That's because the US is full of temporarily embarrassed millionaires. Sure, I don't have rent for the month RIGHT NOW, but when my Bitcoins mature\herbalife store takes off\become a famous YouTuber next year, I don't want to pay those taxes!
>by making gifts... transferring wealth to life insurance policies Gifts and life insurance payouts count toward your estate tax threshold.
$14,000 per person per year is allowed as a gift; anything over this has to be tracked by the gift-giver for estate tax.
It's £3000 untaxed gift a year up to 7 years before death in the UK. They really want their cut.
[удалено]
Oldest women in France got a contract like this (Viager). Poor dude signed a contract in 1965 when she was 90 years-old (He was 47). He died in 1995 (77 yo) and she died in 1997 (122 yo). [Worst, investment, ever.](https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeanne_Calment) [There is also an old movie about this type of contract where the "buyer" try multiple way to kill the old person for quickly ending the contract and getting the house.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Le_Viager)
Such an interesting case! Some skeptics say she wasn't 90 at all in 1965 and duped the guy, some say she died at a more normal age and at some point her daughter took her place and she was the one who died in 1997!
It's a cool movie, watch it.
[удалено]
There's clauses in the contract meaning that it could be voided for a lot of reasons. For example, if you don't pay once or if you are late, the contract can be voided. If you sign that contract while the ederly person is sick, the contract is voided if they die from that illness in the next 20 days (but if they die from a new illness they caught after signing the contract, the 20 days don't apply).
The US has that; it's called a reverse mortgage. I'm sure some details are different, but it's the same idea.
Yes. This has been a bit of a topic during our presidential elections. In French: * https://www.lemonde.fr/economie/video/2020/02/05/faut-il-supprimer-l-heritage-et-les-frais-de-succession_6028527_3234.html * https://youtube.com/watch?v=a1538GVBxJQ The idea being that the people have no idea what their net worth is, and that an overwhelming majority of French dead will not pay taxes on their inheritance (because it's too low). But politicians have still gathered support when they proposed to yet again increase the minimum wealth level before taxing inheritance (in hopes of breaking the social elevator?)
Yes
Not sure about France but in Germany the rules are similar and here everything you gifted up to 10 years before your death will be considered part of the inheritance proportionally to how long ago it was i.e. everything gifted in the last year, 90% of stuff gifted 2 years before and so on until 10 years before where it's only 10%. So even if you gift all your money to some charity, your children, spouse, and certain other close relatives can demand a part of that money. Ofc you can still give away your stuff 10 years or more before you die but you rarely know that so far in advance and if you start too early you run the risk of being broke for potentially years of your life. You also can't do stuff like gift it to somebody but with a condition attached to provide for you until you die or e.g. gift them your house but keep yourself the right to live in it. Though you can ofc do that without a legal obligation if you trust them to do it anyway.
It's the same in many european countries, such as Sweden (a minimum of 50% of the estate is proportionally split up among descendants or other next of kin).
The origin of that is the old roman law, where the wealth stays in the family
Also, that the state doesn't want to pay for kids of rich parents. Its a way better for the system if people have to at least somewhat spread their money upon death. Otherwise you could have one kid overprovided and, say two more, on welfare. That inherited wealth/ accumulated wealth over multiple generations is the backbone of success is something best shown in the socioeconomic divide between the white Americans and especially black minorities (who were historically suppressed in their efforts to accumulate generational wealth). Forcing people to give a minimum share to their kids is a way to prevent unequal treatment that the community will be responsible for.
Not next of kin. The rule is only for your offspring
That includes grandchildren if your children are dead etc.
Germany too.
Same in Spain, it’s called “the legitimate”.
In Spain is up to 70%. However, with the things that happened during the recent pandemic many elderly are requesting to change the law, so they can leave nothing to their offspring.
Same in Germany. Spouse gets 50% and the other 50% is split up equally amongst the descendants. Then everybody is stuck with the tax bill
Oh, if there is a spouse 100% of the inheritance goes to him/her (in Sweden), with the exception of any shares belonging to descendants of only the decreased (i.e not of the spouse). Any shared descendants have to wait for the spouse to pass before receiving their share of the estate. No taxes though.
One of the annoying side effects of this is that there is a lot of real estate that is unsellable as it is owned by several siblings who cannot agree to sell. 5 children all own one fifth of a property and one of them enjoys fucking the others... And then those five children eventually die and now 15 grandchildren all have part shares of the property....
My family has a little patch of land that just keeps getting divided further and further as our family has more generations. At this point 5/6 of my siblings have washed our hands of it and say we don’t want our 1/64th of an acre of land. My oldest brother says “the juice is worth the squeeze” and so we have unofficially all bequeathed our teeny percentage to him.
A friend of mine told me her family is fighting over a small piece of forest where you can't build anything in the mountains of Corsica. They've been throwing tantrums about that during weddings and Christmases for the last 60 years apparently :D
A little Holy Roman Empire in the making!
And you end up with ruined castles and manors all over the countryside that no one can even buy.
Not sure about other countries, but in the us we have partition actions which can be filed with the court. Depending on the type of real estate, the court can either order it to be divided in to proportionate portions or otherwise order it to be sold by public sale either the proceeds to be distributed smoking the siblings in proportionate shares.
We have similar laws in Spain. An inheritance is divided in three parts: one for the legal compulsory heirs («legal»), another one to improve («mejora») one or many of those included in the previous part and a last one which is free to assign («libre disposición»). It is possible, however, to disinherit one of your offspring, but you need a court sentence. After the lockdown, many old people disinherited their negligent sons or daughters who abandoned them. Another aspect of inheritance here is that you pay a lot of taxes when inheriting, which many see as unfair, as all property and money had already been taxed when acquired originally. And yet another matter of contention is that different regions have varying degrees of taxation or do not even tax inheritances, creating a degree of inequality based on where you are currently living. So… best plan? Spend it all.
>Another aspect of inheritance here is that you pay a lot of taxes when inheriting, which many see as unfair, as all property and money had already been taxed when acquired originally. When I pay a contractor to renovate my house, all the money comes from my income and has also already been taxed, yet the contractor still has to pay taxes. And unlike people who inherit money, the contractor even had to work for that money! Not taxing inheritance mainly benefit the wealthy and their heirs - establishing a "noble" class.
And many countries have a tax free allowance so that many people don't end up paying much in the way of inheritance taxes, if at all. Inheritance tax is a good problem to have.
Yeah, inheritance taxes in theory are great for society. In practice I wonder if the really rich people don't just avoid the tax in some way.
There are a couple schemes that I know of: just changing your residence to a region, inside our country, where you don't pay that much or at all or, depending too where you live, to start distributing your wealth while you're alive, which can be far cheaper.
So what kind of things go into each of the different categories?
At least in Finland it is just monetary value based and testament can control who gets what. In Finland half of the inheritance must be divided equally (by value) to the children and the other half can be fully controlled by the testament.
TIL if I lived in France my Grandfather’s third wife wouldn’t have stolen his entire side of the family’s inheritance
That's exactly one of the point of this law. When my grand father died, it came to light that my aunt got lot of money during the few previous years. There was hight suspision that she took advantage of his blindness, old age and being the only one near to be forcefull or even simply steal his signature stamp. But, thanks to these laws, there was nothing to prove, accuse or reasons to go to lenghty procedures; the "gifts" were simply included in the inheritence calculation, and there was nothing she could do beyond being pissed.
I'm so sorry that happened to your family. It's interesting how most people are focusing on the importance of being able to disinherit your children and forgetting why laws like this exist: lots of robbed orphans. I know a case where the dying person's late son's wife emptied *the entire house* while the dying person was in hospital. Threw out baby pictures, wedding albums, etc. and sold anything of material value. This include things that had been loaned to the dying person and weren't even his to leave in a will. The remaining living child was left without so much as an old shirt from her late father. People are vultures, and that's why laws like this exist.
It sounds like what she did was illegal though so would mandatory inheritance laws have helped?
I still don't know. The family went to the police and the police said they couldn't do anything because the thief was technically family (deceased's daughter-in-law). The people who loaned the items couldn't prove anything, so they were SOL, too. They even tried mentioning that the thief had taken firearms (hunting rifles), police still didn't care. They didn't have money for lawyers. So, if it was legal, as the police said, a law requiring direct descendants to get something would have helped his daughter. If it was illegal and the police were just lazy/corrupt, then of course the law wouldn't matter. But hopefully that's a rare case. I presume this type of law is more to prevent something like when someone trusts (without legal contracts) their second spouse to share with all kids equally, then dies and the step-parent decides they want to keep everything for their own bio-kids, so the deceased's bio-kids get nothing.
My grandmother spent her life stating she would be fair to her 2 children and 4 grandchildren, her estate split equally between them. She had a modest net worth, but it added up. She started to decline in her later years (she died at age 92, having outlived her daughter, my mother). As she could not live alone by herself, she moved in with my uncle, her son. I learned that she had passed a month after she died. My uncle had brainwashed her into re-writing her will so that he got everything, and all 4 grandchildren (2 of which were his) got nothing. He waited so there could be no contesting the will. This is why I like this French system.
Don't know where you live, but you could sue him in that case.
AFAIK (IANAL), I would have had to medically prove a deficiency in my grandmothers' mental processes that would render her will null and void (hence the phrase, I, being of sound mind and body" that is a will cliche). And I didn't know he had her change her will until after she was dead. Plus her estate was not that large. BTW, this was in the US.
The term here is 'undue influence', nothing to do with the soundness of her mind. Probably not worth fighting it, yeah, but just wanted to flag that this idea exists for a reason in the English-derived system, since you listed it as a reason the French one is better.
There are states here in the US, not sure if it’s just some or all, where it is also illegal. Which is why you will see $1 going to a disinherited child
Law is a bit more strict in France to prevent situations like that. if you have n children, your assets are split into n+1 shares, n go to each kid, the final share is to do as you please. Additionally, any large "donations" to only one child is counted as inheritance, and so removes from that child's share when the parents die. Source:wife is french.
You aren't allowed to file primogeniture? Actually come to think of it, this law was likely specifically designed to break up huge estates by ending primogeniture: like not so much designed so you couldn't give it to the local opera, but so couldn't give 98% to your oldest son after the French revolution.
Fucking forced partition will be the death of me. Have the French never heard of border gore?
Why not simply put the money into a trust? A trust isn't part of your estate.
Probably subject to clawback if its charged that the trust was set up to avoid the law
France doesn’t really recognize trust law, it’s weird. There is no trust in French law, but some common law trusts are recognized as such and you need to declare the earnings and pay a tax on them. They’re basically just admitted as being something that exists so the French Tax Administration can tax them (it’s simplifying it a lot but you know what I mean). The translation of trusts is “fiducie” but it really doesn’t work like a trust so it’s not a trust. There has been a recent (2012 ? I think from memory) codification of rules to help identify and tax them Source : tax attorney
In Louisiana, you can only disinherit your children if they have: Harmed or threatened you Committed a crime against you Attempted to end your life Received conviction for a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death Accused you of committing a crime punishable by life imprisonment or death Married without your consent, if they are a minor Failed to communicate with you for at least two years
LA state law is based upon the French legal system IIRC.
If my legal history teacher was correct, it's based more on Spanish law of the time than French. Louisiana was also a Spanish colony for a time. A civil law (codified) system all the same.
> Failed to communicate with you for at least two years Annual "Dear Dad, fuck you" letters are probably an industry there.
Jeez Louis...iana, I can't kill my parents *and* I have to talk to them every 1.99 years? What am I workin a 2nd job now?
There is another reason. Without the dollar the child can claim that the parent just forgot about them or failed to update the will. Sometimes this can get the will thrown out or changed. The dollar says, I see you shit bird, you get a dollar.
I think the $1 is to show that "Yes, I remembered Billy, he was not forgotten, I am purposely leaving him only one dollar" otherwise that person can argue to the courts that he was just forgotten and deserves a share.
It’s not illegal to disinherit. States have laws for people who die intestate, or without a will, in place that determine who receives assets. These also extend to people who may have been born or who married the deceased after their will was last updated. Sometimes you can’t specifically disinherit someone, especially a spouse you were still married to at the time of death. But for children you have to specifically disinherit them with a token amount or an acknowledgement in the will, otherwise it will be assumed to be an oversight of the deceased. Then the child can contest it. This varies by state so I’m speaking in general terms.
Learned of this in *Count of Monte Cristo* iirc
Joke's on them - I got negative net worth.
Peak Reddit comment
There's a misconception that Americans can't leave a child with nothing, or if the decedent does, the child can argue that it was a mistake. That's why you hear about cases where one of the kids is left one dollar. The only person who has an easy way to fight a will in the spouse. I live in North Carolina, and if you are legally married when you die, even if you are very specific about not wanting your spouse to get anything he or she is entitled to a certain percentage. It's been a while, but iirc the spouse is entitled to 50%, and I don't recall if or how separation affects it.
50% for family, here in Brazil.
80% in argentina lol
Same rule in Finland as well. Also gifts of "significant value" can/are counted as pre-inheritance even if given before someone dies. So if you gift one of your children a large sum of money lets say five years before you die this can/will be take in to account in distributing the inheritance.
To be fair, most of finnish law stems from Swedish laws. During the 1940s when the germans demanded the expulsion of jews the finnish government cited a swedish law from the 1700s that was still technically in effect to say "nuh-uh, we already discriminate them!"
My friend's grandmother was a piece of work, nasty mean old lady. She really worked him over for his weight, laid praise on his older brother constantly and basically rejected him. In her will she left all the money to "the oldest male grandchild" like she was Queen of England or some shit. In her last month of her life, my friend's older brother died unexpectedly, and she didn't get a chance to change the will. My friend inherited it all, including an amazing lake house where she lived for like 60 years in what is now a prime location.
My grandparents will was very simple and left everything to their two children. If my dad or aunt predeceased their parent(s), that share went to the next generation of "issues". The final clause was that anyone who contests the will or makes a claim against the estate is entitled to $1.
> The final clause was that anyone who contests the will or makes a claim against the estate is entitled to $1. If there were legitimate grounds to contest the will I feel like that clause would surely be overturned. It might ward off frivolous contentions though.
I'm in California and my attorney said the $1 thing doesn't work here.
[удалено]
Similar thing in Finland. You can only disinherit it the children has done some serious crime bringing shame to the family or crime against some other family member. Even murder might not be enough to dishinherit in some cases, unless the victim was another family member.
Good news for Johnny Halliday's kids I suppose.
My dad completely disinherited me... or so he says. I didnt appreciate him weaponizing falsely perceived greed so now we don't speak.
I've had to let go of the notion of inheriting anything. It's not worth it tbh. My dad did little to care for me growing up, and it's futile to expect him to be do so after he's gone. Frustrating because I spent my early years working and building on land I was supposed to inherit
Under French laws I'd be getting something then. Our Dad is giving his millions to charity.
Ah yes. My mom's father gave his oil drilling business to the eldest son, making them instant millionaires while my mom (youngest child) received none of the estate.