Tag Archives: Probate

Do you think this is a brutal obituary?

We read this article on CNN and decided to share it with you exactly as written. Did you ever have a relative you absolutely detested and yet you wrote a flowery obituary? Not the person in this story by AJ Willingham

Story highlights

Obit describes ‘relieved’ family, ‘no redeeming qualities’ for the deceased.
The man’s daughter explained why she wrote such things.

“(CNN)This is not one of those funny-yet-terse obituaries that often make headlines. This one is kind of upsetting, and the author of the shocking screed has a very specific reason for her harsh words.

Leslie Ray Charping of Galveston, Texas, recently died at the age of 75, and his obituary posted on the Carnes Funeral Home website quickly went viral. It is no longer on the site, but has been widely reported and corroborated by Charping’s daughter, who wrote it.

The words, wholly un-minced, speak for themselves:

“Leslie Ray ‘Popeye’ Charping was born in Galveston on November 20, 1942 and passed away January 30, 2017, which was 29 years longer than expected and much longer than he deserved.”

“At a young age, Leslie quickly became a model example of bad parenting combined with mental illness and a complete commitment to drinking, drugs, womanizing and being generally offensive. Leslie enlisted to serve in the Navy, but not so much in a brave & patriotic way but more as part of a plea deal to escape sentencing on criminal charges.”

“Leslie’s hobbies included being abusive to his family, expediting trips to heaven for the beloved family pets and fishing, which he was less skilled with than the previously mentioned. Leslie’s life served no other obvious purpose, he did not contribute to society or serve his community and he possessed no redeeming qualities besides quick whited [sic] sarcasm which was amusing during his sober days.”

“With Leslie’s passing he will be missed only for what he never did; being a loving husband, father and good friend.”

” Leslie’s passing proves that evil does in fact die and hopefully marks a time of healing and safety for all.”

According to the original obituary, Charping was cremated and is currently being kept in the family barn.

If the idea of speaking ill of the dead disturbs you, Charping’s daughter, the obit’s author, assures you you’re fortunate to miss the point.

“I am happy for those that simply do not understand, this means you had good parent(s) — please treasure what you have,” the woman told CNN affiliate KTRK in a statement.

“I apologize to anyone that my father hurt and I felt it would have been offensive to portray him as anything other than who he was,” she also said. “This obituary was intended to help bring closure because not talking about domestic violence doesn’t make it go away!”

She asked not to be named in the KTRK report.”

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We certainly hope your relatives are nicer than the father described above. If you need help writing an obituary or planning a funeral for one of them, check out our website http://www.diesmart.com.

Are your digital assets in your estate plan?

Much of our life lives online these days. Email is just the beginning. Do you have a Facebook account? What about PayPal? How about an online bank account?

If you don’t include information about those digital assets in your estate plan, your family may have a terrible problem trying to access and deal with your online accounts. First of all, they will have to figure out what they are and then they will need to find a way to access them.

If your executor can’t track down your accounts, your estate may be at risk for fraud. For example, your Amazon account is probably hooked up to a credit card. If the account isn’t closed after your death, someone may hack it and make purchases which will have to be paid for by your estate.

Putting your digital assets in your estate plan is not a very simple matter. Each of the accounts you hold is governed by a terms of service agreement. You must have clicked on it when you opened the account. The agreement may limit access to the account to just you. To complicate things further, your family member will need your password for access. But it may be illegal for them to use that password. After your death, they will have to show that they have a right to access the account…but may still be unable legally to do so.

22 states have already enacted laws to help clarify how online accounts of the deceased can be accessed and managed. These laws are based on the revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act – UFADAA. And several more have introduced bills into their legislature.

There are some restrictions that are intended to protect the privacy of the deceased. For example, an executor can manage the digital property but may not be allowed to read the contents of email messages.

There are three parts to the revised UFADAA act:

1) If a service provider offers an online way for the user to state post-death wishes, the account owner’s use of that path determines what happens to the account. An example is Google’s Inactive Account Manager.

2) If there is no way provided after the account owner’s death or the account owner doesn’t use any tool available, the account owner’s directions in a will or other legal document will stand.

3) If the first two parts do not apply, the terms of service agreement that was clicked on when the account was open will determine how the digital assets are handled.

Other things you can do to be prepared are:

1) Create a list of your electronic accounts and include your log on IDs and passwords.

2) Use a password manager tool such as LastPass and share the information with your executor.

3) Think about putting all of your estate documents into an online vault like Dropbox or Everplans.

4) Put your digital asset plan into your estate documents. The more specific you can be, the better.

5) Think about writing a statement of intent in general that can apply to all of your accounts, even ones you may have forgotten about when writing your list in #1.

6) Decide and spell out clearly what information you want your executor to have access to. Do you want her to read all of your emails? You might want to limit what she can see.

7) Pick your executor carefully and make sure that person is at least somewhat tech savvy.

For more information about digital assets and estate planning, check out our website http://www.diesmart.com.

Ever heard of Charles Millar’s birth derby?

Charles Vance Millar, a wealthy Canadian lawyer was known for his practical jokes. But his biggest prank of all was the one he left in his last will and testament. When his will was read after he died on October 31, 1926, it was revealed that he had made several unusual bequests.

Millar had no close relatives or heirs but he did have a great deal of cash and properties. He gave shares in a jockey club to gambling opponents and shares in a brewery to teetotalling religious leaders. He left his house in Jamaica to three men who hated one another, on the condition that they would own it together.

But his most unusual bequest was made for the balance of his estate – approximately $9 million (in today’s Canadian dollars). The remainder would be bequeathed a decade later “to the mother who has since my death given birth in Toronto to the greatest number of children as shown by the registrations under the Vital Statistics Act.” If there was a tie, he wanted his fortune to be divided equally among the winners.

It’s not known how many families decided to try to win this prize. However, by the deadline in 1936, more than 24 Toronto families had had at least eight babies during the ten year period.

“Ten years after Millar’s death, 32 lawyers showed up to an initial hearing to claim a share of the fortune for the families they represented. After some quick record scanning, though, the presiding judge, William Middleton, cleared out everyone who didn’t have at least nine kids younger than 10. That left six families.”

Two of those families settled for about $200,000 each. Pauline Clark had 10 children during the specified time; however, five were born out of wedlock. The judge interpreted the bequest to mean “legitimate children”. Lillian Kenny gave birth to 11 children but three of them were stillborn. The judge said “A child born dead is not in truth a child.” Hence the reduced settlement.

Four other families with nine children each – the Timlecks (see photo above), the Nagles, the Smith and the MacLeans – were each awarded the equivalent of about $2 million!

This bequest is probably a lot more unusual than anything you will put in your will. However, whatever you want to do with your money once your deceased should be well documented so that your wishes will be carried out.

For more information about wills and trusts, check out our website http://www.diesmart.com.

Checked your state’s unclaimed property database lately?

When Sophie Walter died in Illinois in 2009, she left behind a sizable estate, some of it in a pet trust for Taffy, her beloved cat.

The cat’s money was paid out monthly to Taffy’s caregiver, Karen Norwood (who had also been Sophie’s caregiver at an assisted-living facility during the final years of her life). The funds were used to cover Taffy’s care and maintenance for the remaining years of her life. She died last year at age 17.

In addition to the pet trust for Taffy, Walters left her money to several animal welfare charities.

Her story would never have been noticed if it weren’t for $121,479 that had fallen through the cracks following her death. This money was in a savings account she had at JP Morgan Chase Bank. After five years with no activity on the account, the bank turned that money over to the state treasurer, as required by law.

Taffy’s trust was only discovered when the state treasurer’s office looked for the money’s rightful owner. Whether the money actually belonged to Taffy is unclear but it was passed on to the same animal welfare charities that had received the balance of Walter’s estate.

A cat can’t check the treasurer’s unclaimed property database but you can. It’s a good idea to check it every so often in case you actually have an account you’ve forgotten about or a bequest from a now deceased relative has fallen through the cracks.

For more helpful hints about what to do after someone dies, check out our website http://www.diesmart.com.

50% of Prince’s estate value goes to pay estate taxes

Yesterday, Prince’s estate had to file an estate tax payment plan. Since his estate was valued at about $200 million, the taxes are expected to be about half of that – 40% to the federal government and 16% to the state of Minnesota. Allowable deductions and exclusions will reduce that amount to 50%.

If Prince had an estate plan with trusts to benefit relatives and charities he chose, the amount of taxes due would have been very low. Instead, only about 50% will go to his six siblings and the government will take the rest.

Prince’s estate didn’t have to actually have to pay the entire $100 million yesterday; it can make payments over time. That’s a good thing since Prince’s estate isn’t very liquid. There are many entertainment assets which are still being valued and it can take a long time since their actual worth will be determined.

It’s not clear whether the IRS and Prince’s estate will agree on the value of his music catalog; it’s difficult to put a dollar value on this kind of asset. The estate can learn from the experience of Michael Jackson’s estate. He died in 2009 and yet his estate is still not settled. The tax case will go on trial in Los Angeles next month where there will be a dispute about more than $700 million in taxes, interest and penalties.

You probably aren’t worth this kind of money but even if your estate is only worth a few hundred thousand dollars, you should still have an estate plan. It will make it much easier for your heirs and will enable them, rather than the government, to share in the total value of your estate.

For more information about estate planning, go to our website http://www.diesmart.com.