Wills The Last Laugh
Your will is drawn up to help your family sort out the disposal of your estate when you’ve bit the dust. Whilst yours may be simple, here are a few with some quirks to them.
Will’s With A Difference
It is practical to make a will. The majority of us realize that, but actually getting around to it seems such a hassle. How much consideration went in these “wills with a difference”?
Even the famous magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini, couldn’t escape death. Having perished from a burst appendix, one of his greatest shocks came with the reading of his will. His magicians equipment went to his former partner Theodore, who was in addition his brother. His conjuring powers failed on the next section – his considerable library of writings on magic and the supernatural. He left these to the American Society for Psychical Research, but only on the term that their research officer J Malcolm Bird, who additionally was the editor of their journal, resigned. They refused the terms the compilation was given to the Library of Congress.
The performing rabbits that he employed in his act left their hats and were distributed amongst the children of friends. Continuing the wierd theme, his gave his wife ten words, which were a secret code, with the avowal that he would employ these words to contact her from the afterlife. Every year for ten years, following his death, she reliably held séances, but Houdini never made contact.
Rock and blues singer Janis Lyn Joplin had a short but memorable career. She wrote many rock anthems and four albums, including “To Love Somebody” and “Me and Bobby McGee”. After years of drugs and drink, she passed away from an overdose, aged 27. Two days before her death in 1970 her will the sum of $2,500 to sponsor an all night wake at her favourite pub so that her friends could “get blasted after I’m gone.” It must have been some wake – that was a large amount of money back in 1970.
We’ve all read about people that, unexpectedly, give all their estate to the cats’ home, much to the anger of their relatives. Lot’s of family feuds begin when a will is read. As long as the person who made the will is of sound mind and not under duress, there is often nothing that can be done to contest such a decision.
Quirks aside, if you pass on without writing a will, the people whom you would wish to inherit wont necessarily be the ones that do so. You could have a partner of several years, but if you’re not married or in a legal partnership, he or she won’t get your estate, regardless of your aims and affirmations. This can be upsetting when it’s not clearly understood and can result in devastating financial consequences.
The up to date method to get your will started is to go online and find a will adviser . However simple your designs are, it’s advisable to get the professionals to write it for you and you can be confident that you’re leaving your estate exactly how you would want.
This entry was posted on Wednesday, November 25th, 2009 at 4:55 am and is filed under General. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.