Tag Archives: diesmart.com

One person is the biggest loser – Settlement of the Huguette Clark will dispute

Awhile ago we told you about Huguette Clark, a reclusive multimillionaire who died at the age of 104.

She wrote two wills about six weeks apart. In the first one, she left the majority of her $300 million estate to her relatives, many of whom she had not seen in many years and some who she had never met. The second will directly cut out all of her relatives and left $30 million to her private duty nurse, Hadassah Peri, gifts to her lawyers and accountants and funds to create an arts foundation at her $85 million mansion, Bellosguardo, in Santa Barbara, CA.

Some of her relatives contested the will, claiming that she had been unduly influenced by her caretakers. The case was supposed to go to court but, just as jury selection was about to begin, the case was settled out of court. An 81-page settlement agreement was presented to the judge and was approved.

19 heirs of Huguette Clark will receive $34.5 million with estate taxes and $11.5 million in attorney fees paid by the estate. Another big winner in the settlement is the charitable arts foundation that will be created to maintain Bellosguardo.

The biggest loser is her nurse. Hadassah Peri will not receive the $30 million she was given in the first will and, in fact, will have to pay back $5 million of the $31 million she was given during Huguette Clark’s lifetime.

Those of you who read this blog may not have $300 million and so may think that having a good will, written when there is no question of your mental state, may not be that important. But it is. Unless you want your family to have to go to court and fight for what they think they deserve, put your wishes in writing NOW and, if possible, share those wishes with your loved ones so they will know what to expect and can ask any questions they may have….while you can still answer them.

For more information about wills and other issues related to end of life planning, go to www.diesmart.com.

Pet cemeteries can now bury people…in NY

In 2011, the New York Division of Cemeteries ruled that human burials could not take place in pet cemeteries. This left many people devastated because they wanted their ashes to be buried with their pets…but they couldn’t be.

According to Ed Marin, owner of the 117 year old Hartsdale Pet Cemetery in Westchester, NY, prior to the ban more than 700 people’s ashes had been interred at Hartsdale. He said that he gets five or six requests per year for this service.

Now, New York state will once again allow animal lovers to be buried with their pets, if the cemeteries agree to two conditions:

1) They won’t charge a fee for the burial.

2) They won’t advertise human burial services.

For more information about burial options and other funeral related information, check out diesmart.com.

Bad mistake made by heiress Huguette Clark

Huguette Clark was an heiress who died in 2011 at age 104. She left behind a $300 million estate. The bulk of the money was inherited from her father, a copper tycoon in Montana. She owned a 23-acre estate near Santa Barbara valued at $100 million, a $24 million house in Connecticut and a $100 million coop on Fifth Ave. in New York. She was a painter and a collector of rare French and Japanese dolls. She had no children, no close relatives and only limited contact with any of her distant relations.

She spent the last 20 years of her life living at Beth Israel Medical Center as a recluse, closer to her doctors and nurses than any family.

When she died, the only people who attended her burial were funeral home employees.

What did she do wrong? She left behind two wills, written just six weeks apart.

The first one left $5 million to her nurses and the balance of the estate to her distant relatives, even though 14 of the 19 involved said that they had never even met Huguette.

The second will left nothing to the relatives. It specifically said” I intentionally make no provision…for any members of my family…having had minimal contact with them over the years.” Instead, charities are the largest beneficiaries, receiving over 80% of the estate. Also named was her registered nurse, Hadassah Peri, who would receive $15.3 million after taxes, and a goddaughter who would get $7.9 million. Lesser beneficiaries included Beth Israel Medical Center, her attorney, her personal assistant, her accountant, property managers and one of her doctors.

In addition to what she was given in the will, her registered nurse received more than $31 million in gifts before Clark died and the estate administrator is asking that the $31 million be returned to the estate.

Family members are claiming that the second will was written under duress when she was mentally ill and incompetent and the victim of fraud by her nurse, attorney and accountant.

Negotiations have been going on for a few years, with 60 attorneys involved in the case. However, the chance of a settlement is not certain and a jury trial is scheduled to begin in Surrogate’s Court in Manhattan on September 17th.

Huguette Clark should have had better legal counsel when she decided what to do with her sizeable estate. She should have prepared a trust, including directions on who had the right to make decisions on her behalf when she was unable to do so. And she probably should have destroyed the first will.

It will be interesting to see what the probate court decides if a settled hasn’t been reached prior to September 17th.

For more information about Hugette Clark and her reclusive life, look for a book being released on September 10th titled “Empty Mansions: The Mysterious Life of Huguette Clark and the Spending of a Great American Fortune.”

To learn more about how to plan for the end of your life, go to www.diesmart.com.

Defeat of DOMA – More federal benefits for same sex married couples

One of the many changes that that will affect gay and lesbian married couples is in the area of income taxes.

A February report by the Williams Institute, a UCLA law school think tank that studies sexual orientation and gender identity law, found that “most married lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender workers pay more in income taxes than they would if allowed to file as ‘married, filing jointly’, especially for spouses with very different incomes. For example, a working parent with taxable income of $60,000 a year and a stay-at-home spouse with no income would pay $2,900 more as individuals than as a couple. ”

The report goes on to say that “until now, working LGBT parents couldn’t establish legal ties to their spouses’ children, so generally were not able to claim child-related exemptions, deductions and credits.” In this new post DOMA world, they will probably be able to establish legal ties and claim the tax benefits.

Another area in which they may benefit is that of Social Security. When the first spouse dies, the surviving spouse most likely will be able to collect the deceased spouse’s Social Security if the amount is higher than theirs.

As mentioned in an earlier blog, estate tax is a third area in which these couples should see a major benefit. In the past, when one person died, the other partner had to pay taxes on any inherited assets. Now, as a legally married couple, when one spouse dies, all their assets could go to the surviving spouse without any tax penalty being imposed .

Finally, legally married gay couples should review any tax returns they filed since their weddings. They may be eligible to amend their returns to file jointly and take other deductions that were not previously available to them.

There are more than 1,000 federal statutes related to benefits that, until now, were only available to married couples consisting of a man and a woman. They will now be available to same sex married couples as well.

For more information about estate planning and other issues related to getting your affairs in order, go to http://www.diesmart.com.

Opt out – It’s one more way to prevent identity theft

You probably know that identity theft is a huge problem in the United States. It occurs when someone uses your name or Social Security number to obtain identity documents and then uses them for financial gain. But you may be surprised to learn that 25% of all identity thefts are of people who are deceased.

There are several ways to prevent identity theft and these are discussed in our book “Grave Robbers…How to Prevent Identity Theft of the Deceased.” The second edition of this book will be out shortly.

One way you can deter thieves is by not getting unsolicited applications for credit cards or insurance. If you’re like me, you get at least a few of these mailings every week. And what happens to these applications? If they come to your home, you quickly retrieve them from your mailbox and then shred them, probably nothing. But if they come to the home of someone who is deceased, they may sit in the mailbox for awhile, easy prey for an identity theft.

There’s one simple thing you can do. Go to OptOutPrescreen.com and opt out.

What does this mean? The consumer crediting reporting companies usually include your name on lists used by creditors or insurers to make offers. When you opt out, your name can longer be included which frees you from unsolicited mail and protects your identity. When you opt out on behalf of someone who is deceased, you are making it more difficult for an identity thief to steal their identity by applying for credit cards or insurance in their name.

It only takes a few seconds to do, costs nothing and will not only eliminate some of the unwanted mail you probably receive every day but will protect your identity as well.

For more information about identity theft as well as other end of life and after death issues, check out our website: diesmart.com.