To non-estate planners (i.e., most of the population), the technical estate planning process can be eye-numbingly dry.
Wills with sub-parts and sub-sub-parts. Book-length trusts. Lawyer language everywhere.
Yes, you have to read your estate plan documents. And yes, your FOS attorney will make sure you understand them.
Your estate plan, after all, is YOUR mandate of where, when and to whom YOUR assets go upon your death. It’s your last word.
Want to revenge-gift your aunt the couch she keeps calling “ugly”? Go right ahead.
Want to pay your grandson’s college tuition, but would prefer he stop drinking during the semester? Leave him the tuition, conditioned on abstinence.
Like the LP preservation mission of Vinyl Record Day (yes, this non-profit exists)? Bequeath away.
Don’t worry. None of these would be the strangest bequest ever made.
That award might go to the man who left almost $50,000 to Jesus Christ, provided he could prove his identity. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3018729/Money-half-pound-pork-sausages-single-farthing-nagging-wife-26-000-Christ-long-prove-s-craziest-bequests-wills.html
Or the British woman who left $806,000 to “whichever government is in office at the date of my death.” http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2013/08/15/Britains-governing-parties-to-give-unusual-bequest-to-Treasury/48001376546150/
Or maybe the woman who left a $100,000 trust fund for her 32 cockatiels, a cat and a dog named Frosty. http://time.com/4023996/100k-32-cockatiels/
Of course, you don’t have to make these, or any, unusual bequests. You can and should leave your assets to whomever or whatever you want.
That’s the point. Without an estate plan, you won’t control your assets’ disposition after you die.
Contact your FOS estate planning attorney to make sure you have the last word.
And imagine the look on your aunt’s face. . . .
