Alfred Nobel's will, in which he endows the Nobel prize.
Charles Vance Millar's will was notorious for offering the bulk of his estate to the Toronto woman who had the greatest number of children in the ten years after his death (the Great Stork Derby). Attempts to invalidate it by his would-be heirs were unsuccessful, and the bulk of Millar's fortune eventually went to four women
The Thellusson Will Case was fictionalized by Charles Dickens as Jarndyce and Jarndyce in Bleak House, and led to Parliament legislating against such accumulation of money for later distribution.
According to Consumer Reports, as many as 66% of Americans don't have a will. Among the notables who died either without a valid will or no will at all are Ross Alexander, Fatty Arbuckle, Anura Bandaranaike, Madhav Prasad Birla, Sonny Bono, George Brent, Lenny Bruce, Jacob A. Cantor, Kurt Cobain, Russ Columbo, Sam Cooke, James Dean, Sandy Dennis, John Denver, Divine, Duke Ellington, Cass Elliot, Chris Farley, Bobby Fischer, Redd Foxx, Mary Frann, James A. Garfield, Marvin Gaye, Ulysses S. Grant, Billie Holiday, Buddy Holly, Shemp Howard, Howard Hughes, Andrew Johnson, Florence Griffith-Joyner, Martin Luther King, Jr., Ernie Kovacs, Harry Langdon, Bruce Lee, Abraham Lincoln, Peter Lorre, Jayne Mansfield, Rocky Marciano, Karl Marx, Steve McNair, Sal Mineo, Carmen Miranda, Keith Moon, Rosa Parks, Pablo Picasso, Mihajlo Idvorski Pupin, Tupac Shakur, Don Simpson, Anna Nicole Smith, William Desmond Taylor, Sharon Tate, Tiny Tim, Ritchie Valens, HervŽ Villechaize, Barry White, and Jimmy Witherspoon.
The longest known legal will is that of Englishwoman Frederica Evelyn Stilwell Cook. Probated in 1925, it was 1,066 pages, and had to be bound in 4 volumes; her estate was worth $100,000.
The shortest known legal wills are those of Bimla Rishi of Delhi, India and Karl Tausch of Hesse, Germany, both containing only three words.[ ÒAll To SonÓ]
[edit]
Freedom of disposition
The conception of the freedom of disposition by will, familiar as it is in modern England and the United States, both generally considered common law systems, is by no means universal. In fact, complete freedom is the exception rather than the rule. Civil law systems often put some restrictions on the possibilities of disposal; see for example "Forced heirship".
Advocates for gays and lesbians have pointed to the inheritance rights of spouses as desirable for same-sex couples as well, through same-sex marriage or civil unions. Opponents of such advocacy rebut this claim by pointing to the ability of same-sex couples to disperse their assets by will. Historically, courts have been more willing to strike down wills leaving property to a same-sex partner for reasons such as incapacity or undue influence.[citation needed] See, for example In Re Kaufmann's Will 20 A.D.2d 464, 247 N.Y.S.2d 664 (1964), aff'd, 15 N.Y.2d 825, 257 N.Y.S.2d 941, 205 N.E.2d 864 (1965)
[edit]
Terminology
Administrator - person appointed or who petitions to administer an estate in an intestate succession. The antiquated English term of administratrix was used to refer to a female but is generally no longer in standard legal usage.
beneficiary - anyone receiving a gift or benefitting from a trust
bequest - testamentary gift of personal property, traditionally other than money.
codicil - (1) amendment to a will; (2) a will that modifies or partially revokes an existing or earlier will.
Decedent - the deceased (U.S. term)
demonstrative legacy - a gift of a specific sum of money with a direction that is to be paid out of a particular fund.
Descent - succession to real property.
devise - testamentary gift of real property.
devisee - beneficiary of real property under a will.
distribution - succession to personal property.
executor/executrix or personal representative [PR] - person named to administer the estate, generally subject to the supervision of the probate court, in accordance with the testator's wishes in the will. In most cases, the testator will nominate an executor/PR in the will unless that person is unable or unwilling to serve.
Inheritor - a beneficiary in a succession, testate or intestate.
Intestate - person who has not created a will, or who does not have a valid will at the time of death.
Legacy - testamentary gift of personal property, traditionally of money. Note: historically, a legacy has referred to either a gift of real property or personal property.
Legatee - beneficiary of personal property under a will, i.e., a person receiving a legacy.
Probate - legal process of settling the estate of a deceased person.
Specific legacy (or specific bequest) - a testamentary gift of a precisely identifiable object.
Testate - person who dies having created a will before death.
Testator - person who executes or signs a will; that is, the person whose will it is. The antiquated English term of Testatrix was used to refer to a female and is still in use in the US, contrary to what others may wish to claim.
No comments:
Post a Comment