European Stars And Stripes (Newspaper) - October 10, 1986, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Wills Don t always work greed tax Laws technicalities often interfere causing fights i by Kay Bartlett associated Pressy of can t take it Wilh you conventional Wisdom has m. Although some egyptian pharaohs  a lot of others have tried. Thai s Why we have wills to pass one generation s properly  possessions on to the next simply  orderly that does t always work so Well either. Greed avarice duplicity technicalities Legal shenanigans  tax Laws have sometimes spectacularly overruled this simple transition spawning family ends  million Dollar court lights. Among the More dramatic cases recently was the Battle Over the estate of Johnson & Johnson heir j. Seward Johnson. It provided Paga one news or 16 weeks As the Johnson children tried to break the will that Lell nearly Alt of his s500 million estate to Barbara basis Johnson 49. A polish emigre former chambermaid  Johnson s third wife. In the end the Case was settled out of court. The children agreed to share about $52 million  the bulk of the estate went to mrs. Johnson whom Tho children had accused of exerting undue pressure on her husband who died Al 87. A Light Over Howard Hughes estate estimated Al $2 billion went on for a decade after his death. No legitimate will was Ever found  in november 1981 a surrogate judge declared an aunt  21 cousins As the rightful hens despite claims by nearly 500 contenders Rome equipped with fake wills. A movie Melva  Howard was based on the scramble for the Hughes estate when Eleanor Ritchey. An Oil company heiress died m Forl Lau Dordal Flain 1953. She guaranteed press coverage for the life of a band of 150 Midlil mulls she made millionaires in her will it decreed Hal the dogs be cared Lor unlit their deaths after which the Money would go to the school of veterinary science Al Auburn University alter a 16-year wait. Auburn Gol $12 trillion Tho last Pooch to die in 1984 was musketeer. He did t vial to go gently into Hal Good night he did t want Logn Al All. Nor did his caretaker want him to go he lost his  Job the Day musketeer finally succumbed to eld nge Between 18  20 Well Over 100 years in human terms for some years before press accounts noted ital musketeer hobbled when he walked Lell Over when he sneezed  scarcely bothered to open a Rheum Eye for a visitor to his s26.000 compound Complete with an electronic Bug Zapper lest flies or fleas Call on the Nahon s richest dog life was sustained by an often hand fed diet of dog food hamburgers vitamins  occasionally Spaghetti americans May chuckle at bizarre wills of others but there Are Lew chuckles around when it comes to writing the own a proceeding thai inevitably reminds them of their own mortality. It s an emotional subject  when wills Are contested the Battle is often a primal scream As passionate As custody lights. Resentment jealousy feelings of betrayal  abandonment swim to the surface of such Legal combats though All sides commonly insist they re fighting Lor principle rather than Money  All profess to know a kind of Posl moslem esp precisely what the deceased had in mind wills Don t tear families apart families Leaf families apart says Sanford j. Schlesinger a wills  Eulale lawyer americans Don t like to write wills. Three out of Lour die without one despite do it yourself books  countless Magazine articles on Hie necessity of writing a will. People w of generally buy Lite insurance which is every Bil As much a reminder of mortality As a will says or. Maris Vinovskis professor of history at the University of Michigan. Maybe it s just that it s a different Industry. People will come to your House to set you life insurance but lawyers Don t make House Calls to push  education  Money count for Little when it comes to pro fast nation. Half of the surrogate judges i know Don t have a  says Nat Sobel. A retired surrogate judge in Brooklyn. I know partners in Law firms who Don t have wills says Schlesinger of the big Manhattan Law firm of Shea  Gould. He does a pastor in Pennsylvania discussing Wil Hiilis parishioners the desirability of leaving a Little something to the Church when they a to meet their maker remarked that these Days in was a Tot easier to get people to talk about their sex lives than their wills  lawyers report they usually Hava a drawer full of wills that have been All drawn up the Legal fees paid but lacking one vital item the signature. It s a super Lilion. People feel they Are going to die in they sign their wills says George de Sipio. A wills  estates lawyer for 34 years. The will without a signature will not leave your brother ruins a cup of Coffee in most states. It might leave your wife  children roughly what you intended but then Gam maybe not. A person who Dies without a will intestate essentially commissions the stale to write Tho will. And the 50 states Don t agree on How the spoils should be divided. Brother Rulus. Shanties a mistress a close family Friend the lifelong cleaning lady your Loyal Saint Bernard Don t usually Fil Anlo the slate s plans at All. A state May Divide the Estale Between the surviving spouse  the children which May not be the Wisest division especially in the children Are very Young. Some allot the widow one third others Hall. Variations multiply in the absence of obvious direct beneficiaries when Ihms gel to a tangle of grandchildren great grandchildren  other relatives Schlesinger As a wills  Estale specialist is in con Slang demand Lor speeches even though he s not that Greal a spellbinder he says but then i Deal Wilh Tho Only iwo subjects that will never put me out of business deals   his busiest limes these Days Como Aller a Ler Ronal attack when clients plan a vac lion abroad  after holidays when people fight or make up end afterwards come in to redo their wills. State Laws vary Aslo formalities in making a will a Legal  binding document some slates require Threa witnesses most of them two  Pennsylvania simply requires thai two people verify the signature. One of the functions of a Good lawyer is to in to make sure the will is not contested. No one can guarantee that since anyone Wilh a pocketful of Money for lawyers fees can Challenge a will. Many wills routinely stipulate that anyone contesting in is automatically disinherited thai partially works with people who Are actually mentioned in the will but there s nothing to Slop a Challenge from somebody who was t named. Louisiana is the Only Sale where Dis inheriting one s children is illegal the state s statute being based on Tho French rather than the English Model. The other states use the latter which came in during the reign of Henry  earliest known will far predates that. Wills a dead Giveaway by Millie Considine  Ruth Pool cites one carved on the Walls of an egyptian lomb by a Man named Nek ure who lived in 26 . While standing on my own iwo feet  nol oiling in any  a said he disposed of 14 towns  iwo estates dividing them equally among his wife another woman  three children. Tho Book does not say whether the will was hieroglyphic or perhaps More interestingly who the other woman May have been but in certainly was Holographic . Written in one s own hand even today Holographic wills stand up under certain circumstance but lawyers advise against counting on it. One of tha most unusual Holographic will was left by a Pennsylvania Deer Hunter. To had gone up to his Cabin  suffered an angina attack. A found a Dusty desk top  either Wilh his Finger or a 30.06 Shell wrote out his will Belore he collapsed. The desk was properly i increasing drug traffic t of Ennon Polc. Wifi bag of heroin found la a to Reitmi traitor to fug Najr it Tito to Boeriu. Page 14 the stars  stripes