Say It Loud! I'm Dead and I'm Proud!
Sorry blogging has been light lately. I was just on "vacation" in Florida for a week (vacation is in quotes when it involves 18 hours of driving each way, some of it with a sick kid in the back seat).
What did I miss? James Brown has a messy probate estate? Really? Now THERE is a shocker. If there was a pool regarding which celebrities will have the messiest estates upon death, Mr. Brown would have been high up on my list, maybe between K Fed and Flava Flav. All kidding aside, though, the issues here are interesting -- Mr. Brown's Will apparently doesn't refer to his wife or his son. And there's some question as to whether Mr. Brown's wife WAS his wife, and whether his son WAS his son. This article is a nice summary, although it fails to mention my favorite factoid about the case: that Mr. Brown's probate attorney is Strom Thurmond, Jr.
Illinois law has ways of dealing with sticky probate situations, and presumably so does South Carolina, where Mr. Brown resided.
-In Illinois, a spouse can renounce the Will and ask the court for a spouse's award.
-When I draft Wills, I always include language applying the Will's provisions to children born after the Will is signed. In Illinois, we also have this provision:
Unless provision is made in the will for a child of the testator born after the will is executed or unless it appears by the will that it was the intention of the testator to disinherit the child, the child is entitled to receive the portion of the estate to which he would be entitled if the testator died intestate and all legacies shall abate proportionately therefor.
There's also a potential child's award.
