her sons in equal shares. The judge considered the bad feelings between the brothers, and Nick's perception that his parents had favored his brother Bill. Aggressive and violent, Nick had been jailed for assault, and was viewed as having exerted undue influence on his elderly mother, whom he had been caring for on a full-time basis, prior to her death.
One can imagine Jessica Schrader, in her 90s, being pressured into changing her will by her primary caregiver, her son Nick. Are only millionaires and billionaires at risk of having wealth destroy their lives and their families?
Nina Wang – Why it is Critical to Plan for the Worst, While Hoping for the Best
Nina Wang was a larger-than-life character and, at the time of her death in 2007, Asia's wealthiest woman, with assets of over US$4 billion. Her husband, Teddy Wang, from whom she derived her wealth, had been kidnapped twice, and was never found after his second kidnapping in 1990. Disputes over Teddy Wang's wills made front-page news. A first will divided the estate between Teddy Wang's father, who had started the family business, and Nina. A second will left everything to Teddy Wang's father, and was ostensibly put in place after Teddy found out about an affair Nina was having. A third will, hotly disputed as being a forgery orchestrated by Nina, stated that Teddy had “one life and one love” and purported to leave everything to Nina.
A lower court found Teddy Wang's third will to have been a forgery, and suggested that Nina had been responsible for its creation. On appeal to Hong Kong's highest court, the third will was found to be valid, and Nina escaped the charge of forgery and ended up with Teddy's entire estate.
Nina died in 2007 also leaving a messy estate. Her Fung Shui master, Tony Chan, who was having an affair with the much-older Nina, presented a will suggesting that Nina left everything to him, contrary to what was stated in an earlier will executed by Nina, which left her estate to a family charitable foundation. After a long period of litigation, the will Tony Chan presented was found to have been forged, and the charitable foundation was determined to be the proper beneficiary of Nina's estate.
Jonathan Griffin – An Extreme Example of How Succession Plans Can Affect Family Members
Jonathan Griffin, wearing combat gear, caused thousands of pounds of damage to his brother's farm in Dorset, England. Furious at having been excluded from benefit under his father's will, the family farm having been left only to Jonathan's brother and mother, Jonathan's relationship with his brother, David, was clearly destroyed. Jonathan had worked on his father's farm, and was shocked at his father having left him out of a share, ostensibly for tax reasons.
Tony Marshall – An Example of the Potentially Dangerous Consequences of the Fact that We All Live Longer and Need New Approaches to Our Succession Plans
Tony Marshall, aged 88, exhausted his last legal appeal against a jail sentence for having defrauded his mother, Brooke Astor, a well-known New York socialite and philanthropist, who died at the age of 105. Tony Marshall was convicted together with one of his mother's lawyers, Francis Morrissey, Jr., who was also disbarred.
Sentenced to prison terms of one to three years, Marshall and Morrissey were found to have schemed together to siphon funds from Brooke Astor and alter her will, after she was diagnosed as having dementia and suffering from diminished capacity.
Uncle Law – Lust? Use Caution
Uncle Law, a Hong Kong resident, was 79 when he met a young woman from mainland China in Hunan Province. They soon married and had a son. Six months after mother and son received residence permits to move to Hong Kong, the couple divorced and Uncle Law lost custody of his son and his tiny, 150-square-meter apartment. Left with nothing, Uncle Law had been humiliated and abused by his wife who complained of his impotence and lack of financial resources in front of friends and family.
The Hong Kong Agency Against Abuse, a welfare service for the elderly, reported that as many as 100 Hong Kong elderly men had sought their help in 2013 as a result of problems with much younger wives from the mainland who had apparently entrapped them into marriage to obtain residence permits and their modest homes.
Roy Lam Man-chiu of the Agency Against Abuse was quoted as saying “Lust? Use Caution.”
Gore Vidal – The Importance of Considering Alternative Beneficiaries Early on in the Planning Process
The author Gore Vidal died in 2012 at the age of 86. In his original will, Vidal had left his entire estate (reportedly worth well over US$40 million when future royalties from his books were included) to his long-time partner, Howard Austen, who ended up pre-deceasing Vidal, dying in 2003. Vidal changed his will in 2011, leaving his entire estate to Harvard University, a school he was apparently accepted into but which he never attended. His surviving family members, some of whom challenged the will, received nothing. Vidal's long-time housekeeper and chef, Norberto Nierras, also received nothing. He was reported as having said: “I'm 60 years old and had planned to stay with Mr. Vidal until I retired. I will have to go back to the Philippines, I cannot afford to stay in America. I didn't expect he'd leave me anything – other people are surprised he didn't. If Mr. Vidal did leave me something, I would be very, very grateful as it would help with my retirement in the Philippines, as I have a small pension.”
Vidal, in his later years, was in a seriously declined physical and mental state, and according to members of his family, was suffering from dementia and other maladies with symptoms that included confusion and hallucinations.
The Maharajah of Faridkot – Can You Trust Your Trustees?
The Maharajah of Faridkot was depressed after the death of his only son. When he died a short time after, his daughters, the princesses, were stunned to learn that a will their father had ostensibly signed left them virtually nothing. The princesses had expected that the Maharajah would leave them his lands, forts, palaces, jewelry, precious stones, classic cars, and other assets worth several billion US dollars.
All of the assets of the Maharajah were apparently left to a group of trustees, with the eldest daughter of the Maharajah, the child who would have been thought to receive the largest portion of his estate, receiving nothing under the trust. Similarly, each of the Maharajah's widow and surviving mother received nothing under the trust arrangements. The youngest princesses, under the trusts, received a monthly allowance of US$20 and US$18, respectively.
Finally, after lengthy litigation, and by then in their 80s, the Maharajah's daughters succeeded in showing that the will had been forged by their father's “trusted” aides, who named themselves, together with the Maharajah's lawyers, officials, and other servants, as “trustees” of the Maharajah's estate, taking control of his wealth. In the 20 years of litigation, one of the princesses had already died, and part of the Maharajah's estate had been squandered by his self-appointed trustees who threatened to continue the case, claiming that the will putting them in control of the Maharajah's wealth was valid.
These are a few true stories among, sadly, many reported in the press on a regular basis.
In the case of Jessica Schrader, pressured into changing her will at the age of 96, a house worth less than US$500,000 was what destroyed her family and her last years. Is it not a reality that those with less to pass on to the next generation have, in today's world, an even greater responsibility to ensure that what they do is not destructive? A small family business, a nest egg of savings, a piece of jewelry… all can have enormous importance to the younger generation and apart from value can carry with them perceived “messages” from the older generation that, if not sensitively handled, can leave generations of unhappiness. But did Jessica Schrader do anything wrong, leaving her home to her two sons in equal shares under her will? How could she have avoided coming under pressure to change things at a late stage in her life? Would an earlier transfer of the house to her sons, with Jessica keeping the right to live in it for her lifetime, have been safer?
The Chadhas had billions; the Schraders a few hundred thousand in the value of their mother's house. In both cases, families and relationships destroyed. For every family dispute we read about, many, many more take place outside the press. And how many situations have arisen where assets have been stolen, diverted, misplaced, or lost and no one in the family ever even found out?
If