40 Fun Facts About Estate Planning

Whose will, signed in Paris in 1895, left most of his fortune to fund annual international prizes?

Alfred Nobel signed the will at the Swedish-Norwegian Club without telling his family, setting aside 94% of his assets for the awards.

Which English playwright's will famously left his wife, Anne, his second-best bed?

William Shakespeare added the bed in a line squeezed between others, while his daughter Susanna and her husband received most of his goods.

Which Minneapolis music star died in 2016 with no will, leaving six siblings to claim his estate?

Prince left no will that anyone could find, so a trust company was given temporary control of his estate, and it had his vault drilled open.

New York hotel magnate Leona Helmsley's will left a $12 million trust fund to which beneficiary, named Trouble?

Her Maltese dog outlived Helmsley by three years, though a judge cut the fund to $2 million and two grandchildren she had disinherited won $6 million.

Where was Aretha Franklin's handwritten 2014 will found, a document a Michigan jury ruled valid in 2023?

Under a couch cushion is where her niece came across it in 2019, a year after the singer died without a formal typed will.

Which model's claim to her late oil-tycoon husband's fortune reached the United States Supreme Court twice?

Anna Nicole Smith won at the Supreme Court in 2006, but in 2011, four years after her death, the justices ruled against her estate in Stern v. Marshall.

Which British scientist who never visited America left his fortune to found a Washington institution named after him?

James Smithson first left everything to a nephew, and only when the nephew died childless in 1835 did the money pass to the United States.

Which newspaper publisher's will gave Columbia University the money to launch American journalism's most famous prizes?

Joseph Pulitzer's gift also paid for Columbia's journalism school, which opened in 1912, five years before the first awards were handed out.

Which Hollywood star's will left the bulk of her estate to her acting teacher, Lee Strasberg?

Marilyn Monroe's gift moved on again when Strasberg died in 1982, passing to his third wife, Anna, whom he had married only after the star's death.

Which author's last instructions told his friend Max Brod to burn his unpublished manuscripts, a request Brod ignored?

Franz Kafka's wish went unheeded, and Brod published the novels and collected works between 1925 and 1935 to eventual acclaim.

Which court process for validating a will takes its name from the Latin verb meaning 'to prove'?

Probate has meant the official proving of a will since at least 1463, and where no valid will exists the same court applies default inheritance laws.

Which person named in a will pays the estate's debts and distributes what is left, as its personal representative?

Executor is the title only when a will makes the appointment; if there is no will, or nobody named agrees to act, an administrator is appointed instead.

Which legal word describes someone like Pablo Picasso, who died in 1973 having never made a will?

Intestate estates are divided by statute instead of the owner's wishes, and Picasso's heirs feuded while France collected its death duties in artworks.

Which formal amendment to an existing will takes its name from a Latin word for a small writing tablet?

Codicil comes from codicillus, a diminutive of codex, and it can alter, explain, add to or subtract from a will, short of revoking it completely.

Which type of will, written entirely by hand, did a trapped Saskatchewan farmer scratch into his tractor fender in 1948?

Holographic wills are handwritten and signed by their maker, and after the farmer died the fender itself was accepted as his valid will.

Which document lets a chosen agent handle someone's finances, and is called 'durable' if it outlasts incapacity?

Power of attorney ends at the signer's death, and without a durable one a family may have to ask a court to impose a guardianship.

Which document, despite its name, distributes nothing and records the medical care a person wants if incapacitated?

Living will was coined because the document takes effect while its maker is alive but unable to decide, and it is the oldest form of advance directive.

Which Latin phrase meaning 'by roots' sends a dead heir's portion of an estate down to that heir's own descendants?

Per stirpes treats each branch of a family as one unit, so three grandchildren would split their late parent's third instead of each taking an equal cut.

Which doctrine with feudal roots hands a dead person's property to the government when no will and no heirs exist?

Escheat originally returned land to the feudal lord above when a tenant died without an heir or was convicted of a felony.

Which feature of joint tenancy passes a dead co-owner's interest straight to the other owners, whatever a will says?

Right of survivorship is what separates joint tenancy from a tenancy in common, where a dead owner's interest passes through the estate to heirs.

Which marital system, used in California and Texas, treats assets acquired during marriage as owned by both spouses?

Community property covers what a couple acquires while married, whereas gifts and inheritances received by one spouse stay that spouse's own.

Which US state, the only one built on civil law, restricts parents from disinheriting children aged 23 or younger?

Louisiana calls the system forced heirship, a phrase borrowed from Spanish law, and it also protects older children who are permanently incapacitated.

Which will provision, known in Latin as 'in terrorem', threatens to disinherit any heir who challenges it in court?

No-contest clause threats lose their bite in many US states, which refuse to enforce them against a challenger who had probable cause.

In trust law, which term names the person who places assets into a trust, also known as a grantor or trustor?

Settlor comes from 'settling' assets on someone, and the same person may also act as trustee by declaring that they hold their own assets in trust.

Which US tax break resets an inherited asset's cost to its value at the owner's death, shrinking any capital gains bill?

Step-up in basis means an heir who sells straight away may owe almost nothing, because gains built up during the owner's lifetime escape income tax.

Which principle, applied in New York's 1889 case Riggs v. Palmer, bars a murderer from inheriting from the victim?

Slayer rule reasoning stopped 16-year-old Elmer Palmer, who had poisoned his grandfather for fear that the old man would change his will.

Which common-law doctrine stops a will from controlling property beyond a 'life in being plus twenty-one years'?

Rule against perpetuities exists so the dead cannot steer who owns land long after everyone alive when they wrote the document has gone.

A payable-on-death bank account is nicknamed which kind of trust, after a 1904 New York court case?

Totten trusts take their name from Matter of Totten, in which New York's top court approved accounts titled 'in trust for' a named person.

Which doctrine with a Law French name lets a court redirect a charitable trust whose purpose has become impossible?

Cy-près means 'so close', because the court must choose a new purpose as near as possible to what the donor originally intended.

Which doctrine means a classic car left in a will passes to nobody if the owner sold it before dying?

Ademption, also called ademption by extinction, treats a specific gift as having failed once the item is no longer part of the estate.

Which kind of trust do politicians often use to avoid conflicts of interest, keeping its holdings hidden even from them?

Blind trusts give the owner no knowledge of what is held and no say in how it is handled, so official decisions cannot knowingly favour their investments.

Which Charles Dickens novel centres on Jarndyce and Jarndyce, an inheritance lawsuit dragging on for generations?

Bleak House ends the lawsuit with a bitter joke: by the time the rightful heirs seem settled, legal costs have devoured the whole estate.

In Pride and Prejudice, which legal device means Longbourn must pass to Mr Collins instead of the Bennet daughters?

An entail tied Longbourn to the male line, leaving Mr Bennet with only a life interest and no way to pass the estate to any of his five daughters.

Which inheritance custom, used in England to keep great estates undivided, passes everything to the firstborn son?

Primogeniture contrasts with gavelkind, the old custom of Kent, under which land was divided equally among all the sons.

Which reclusive tycoon's fortune was at stake in the 'Mormon Will', which named gas station owner Melvin Dummar an heir?

Howard Hughes supposedly left Dummar $156 million for a desert rescue, but a Las Vegas jury declared the handwritten document a forgery in 1978.

Which Florida woman with no written medical wishes was at the centre of a seven-year court fight over her feeding tube?

Terri Schiavo's husband said she would not have wanted prolonged life support, her parents disputed it, and the tube was finally removed in March 2005.

Which famous sports team owner died in 2010, while the US federal estate tax had lapsed for a year?

George Steinbrenner, owner of the New York Yankees, died that July with a fortune reported at over $1 billion, and the tax returned the next January.

Which philosopher's will had his body preserved as an 'auto-icon', which is displayed at University College London?

Jeremy Bentham asked first to be dissected for science, a wish he had already set down in a will at the age of 21.

Toronto lawyer Charles Vance Millar's will left his fortune to the woman who did what in the decade after he died?

Had the most babies was the test, and the race it set off among Toronto mothers became known as the Great Stork Derby.

Which right lets a widowed spouse reject what a will provides and claim a fixed fraction of the estate instead?

Elective share is the modern successor to dower and curtesy, old English protections meant to keep a widowed spouse out of poverty.