Florida Probate Attorney and Florida Inheritance Lawyer Florida Probate Attorney Blog

Michigan Millionaire lottery winner qualifies for and is using food stamps.

Leroy Fick a 59 year old in Michigan won the $2m lottery when he was on Food Stamps. Since Michigan like the federal standard only measures income and not assets he is eligible for government money paid for by other tax dollars for assistance in buying some food. Michigan governmental officials are working to correct this problem as food stamps should only be used for the truly needy. 

Video of the guy saying he would not feel bad taking food stamps despite being a millionaire.

Yahoo News  reported this story. 

$1 Million dollar 1938 Superman Comic stolen from Nicolas Cage over a decade ago found.

Nicolas Cage was also in the news recently as he had a 1938 mint condition copy of the original Superman Comic that was stolen in 2000. It just turned up in a storage locker in CA. Cage had previously taken an insurance payout for the loss of the comic. Hopefully if he made any capital gain from the amount he paid for it to the amount he received as insurance compensation that was declared to the IRS or he will have a further debt along with more interest and penalties for failure to file and properly pay his taxes. 

See  MSN.com

Talking Bird aid's police in Elder Law Abuse case

ABA Journal reported that a talking Parrot aided the police in charging a 60 year old woman with abuse and neglect in failing to take care of her 98 year old mom in South Carolina. The mom died at the hospital after she was found at home on the verge of death with severe bed sores. The Parrot kept repeating help me, help me and then laughed. 

They have determined the Parrot was repeating the mom asking for help and the daughter laughing. 

Laughable Litigation seeking to gain a large estate

MSN reported of some crazy lawsuits the one that was of interest to this blog was a guy suing Bank of American for not cashing a couple checks since they were missing routing information and seeking $1,784 Billion - Trillion dollars. (21 zeros at the end of the number) then demanded a few extra million. 

To see the list of laughable litigation cases click here.

Arizona Artist Dying to have your cremated ashes

AOL reported weird news that an artist Daniel Ortega in Tempe Arizona is seeking human cremains to be part of his art projects. Previously he has made his art with the cremains of animals. To read the full article and view other samples of his work see David Moye AOL News April 20 Artist Dying to have your cremated ashes.

Michael Jackson Probate Update - Odd claims disputed

The Attorneys for the Michael Jackson Probate case rejected some strange claims. TMZ.com reported that the estate disputes the validity of several claims some of which are just odd and the claimants lack standing to bring. 

Among them include "A pissed off private citizen" who wants the estate to reimburse the city of LA to be reimbursed $3.3 million of dollars for his funeral memorial. 

A woman seeking $2 million for her home schooling services. 

A woman who claimed to be his wife and wanted custody of the children who they told to get lost. 

An additional woman is demanding $50 million because she claims that Michael Jackson wiretapped her phone and had organized criminals watching her. She was also told to get lost. 

The full article can be viewed by clicking here. 

Although this is a California case in Florida the procedure for creditor claims is that following the appointment as personal representative the PR or their Florida Probate Attorney on their behalf would publish notice to creditors in a publication authorized to publish legal notices. It would run once a week for two consecutive weeks. Any creditors which are not known or reasonably ascertainable then would be required to file creditor claims against the estate within 3 month period of publication. If they were it is the greater of 3 months or 30 days after service of notice to them but in no case no longer than 2 years after the date of death. If a claim is filed within the time the estate then has the greater of 30 days after service or 4 months after initial publication of notice to dispute it in which case they can deny any liability as was done with the above claims or agree that something is owed but indicate it should be only x amount. If the claim is denied then an independent action must be taken by the person filing the claim. That would be to bring a lawsuit in probate court. A probate litigation attorney could seek to assist the estate in defending the claim which is felt unjustified. If the lawsuit against the estate is not filed then the claim is considered abandoned. 

The deadlines and probate process rules are important to be followed or the case can be lost. In Florida there are no creditor claims after two years under any situation unless a claim has been timely filed. The Florida statutes regarding Creditor Claims can be found by clicking here.

Selling a comic book not typical way to being Millionaire but its happening.

As MSN.com mentioned the record for the highest figure a comic book ever sold for has just been broken for the 3rd time this year all for at least a million dollars. The most recent millionaire sold a copy of the 1938 Superman comic for the first edition to have come out. This time receiving $1.5 million dollars with the same comic having received $1 million to a different seller earlier this year then a batman comic book for a little over a million dollar now someone who must not be feeling the effects of the current recession just bought a Superman Comic book for $1.5 million. 

Space Travel popular and soon a reality

Although it will remain limited to those with substantial amounts of money who are able to experience the travel anytime in the near future CNN reported that space travel for regular people to buy tickets for will occur soon. A maiden test flight for Richard Branson's company Virgin Galatic and its vehicle the VSS Enterprise was recently successful. It is a 60 foot rocket plane. The business plan is to start with just one flight per week with 6 people who will pay at least $200,000 to travel to space about 60,000 feet into the air. Those who travel will train for 3 days in advance. If that schedule were to be kept there would only be room for 300 people in the first year. However, incredibly despite the $200,000+ price tag per flight lasting just a matter of hours and only 300 people expected to take the first flight in its first full year of operation there are 80,000 people on the wait list. There will be further testing this year and next then they hope to begin the actual flights. They further hope to allow hundreds of thousands of people to eventually be able to afford Star Trek type traveling in space.  

Twins who are 63 days apart in age.

An interesting video from CNN of an unusual set of twins with one being born premature they are separated by over two months in age.

Video of Twins who were born 63 days apart

Anna Nicole Smith Opera to start next year

 Her most recent role that had her in the news both prior to her death and her estate since it was for her involvement in the undue influence claims and trust and estate litigation she has pursued against her husbands estate claiming to be owed millions of dollars. As this article linked below points out she had been a high school dropout then a stripper then a playboy centerfold and actress and for the last 14 months of his life had been married to a 90 year old billionaire who she married when she was 26. Her life is going to be the subject of an opera starting next year.

Anna Nicole Smith Opera

Millions accidentally deposited in bank account

In a strange story AOL reported of a New Zealand couple who mistakenly had around $6 million put in there bank by accident. Likely about the easiest way to create a large estate and be millionaires with the obvious problem that it was not their money and they were not supposed to spend that. Of course the bank realized their error and sought the money back although to make this a more interesting situation the couple apparently had already removed it then left the country to go to the United Kingdom. They will likely face criminal theft charges if they ever return to their country or can be found and brought back for prosecution.

 

 

 

 

Will and Trust Distributions - Unusual provisions

As an estate planning attorney I have been requested to draft some unusual provisions in clients documents as well as hearing and reading about other provisions.

Below is an amusing article of some strange distribution provisions in wills and trusts. The link to the site this information is from is here.

So, what will you leave behind and to whom.......

Sandra West, a wealthy 37-year-old Beverly Hills socialite, left most of her $3 million estate to her brother - provided he made sure she was buried "in my lace nightgown and my Ferrari, with the seat slanted comfortably." That's how she was buried. The Ferrari was surrounded with concrete so no one would be tempted to dig it up and drive away.

Ms. Eleanor Ritchey, the unmarried granddaughter of the founder of Quaker State Oil, died in 1968 with an estate worth around $12 million. According to Scott Bieber in Trusts and Estates magazine: "Under her will, she left over 1,700 pairs of shoes and 1,200 boxes of stationery to the Salvation Army. The rest of the estate went to the dogs." Real dogs, he means - a pack of 150 strays that Ritchey had adopted as pets.

When American patriot Patrick Henry died, everything he owned was left to his wife - as long as she never married again. If she did, he forfeited the whole thing. "It would make me unhappy," he explained, "to feel I have worked all my life only to support another man's wife!" She remarried anyway.

Robert Louis Stevenson, author of Treasure Island, tried to leave his birthday. He willed it to a good friend who'd complained that since she was born on Christmas, she never got to have a real birthday celebration.

An attorney in France left $10,000 to "a local madhouse." The gentleman declared that "it was simply an act of restitution to his clients."

An Australian named Francis R. Lord left one shilling to his wife "for tram fare so she can go somewhere and drown herself." The inheritance was never claimed.

A woman in Cherokee County, North Carolina left her entire estate to God. The court instructed the county sheriff to find the beneficiary. A few days later, the sheriff returned and submitted his report: "After due and diligent search, God cannot be found in this county."

Edgar Bergen, famed ventriloquist, left $10,000 to the Actor's Fund of America - so they could take care of his dummy, Charlie McCarthy, and put him in a show once a year. They went along with it.

Cremated Remains, Outer Space & NFL Football

In the past couple months there have been some strange and unusual final resting places for the cremated remains of people. James Dolan who played Scotty on Star Trek had requested to be sent to his final frontier and his remains were sent to outter space following his death. The article can be found here.

On Sunday November 27th the Philadelphia Eagles played the Green Bay Packers in Philadelphia. Although they are two losing teams and no playoff hopes but as the Arizona Repubic reports the game became memorable from the strange scene caused when a 44 year old business owner Chip Noteboom and son ran on the field just before halftime holding a plastic bag of his mothers cremated remains. She was a big fan of the Eagles and that was the only team she followed despite having moved to Arizona in 1972 and not having returned since. "I don't know if that's what she would have wanted, but I know right now that she is absolutely smiling down at me from ear to ear," he said. He mentioned he had no second thoughts despite being immediately arrested and later being questioned for 19 hours.  "I wasn't trying to make a big deal about it," Noteboom said. "I just wanted to do it for my mom."

End of Life Planning in China

Americans complain about and are concerned about our health care system and end of life planning but a truly troubling article about the state of health care especially in respect of costs toward the end of life medical treatments can be found here.

The article indicates that a daughter brought her mom to be cremated merely to avoid losing her savings to medical bills. The article sadly indicates that unfortunately it was not such an isolated incident but that a substantial percentage of people cannot afford medical care so even those who are not terminal and are able to walk around are killing themselves or their family are doing crazy things like in this situation were they are bringing them to be cremated while still alive. Fortunately for this woman she was noticed to be alive since she was crying just prior to having been cremated.

In the US and in Florida the daughter would almost certainly face criminal charges although it was unclear what would happen in China.

If the daughter were found to have caused the death by the greater wait of the evidence. She would not be able to inherit anything from the estate. The Florida killer statute would prevent it.

This article also illustrates the importance of planning for long term care insurance, putting money aside in health care savings accounts or other retirement and health care savings with longer life expectancies and more costly medical care this is becoming a more important issue for all Americans as well as people word-wide.