After a year of blogging, it finally dawned on me the other day that some of my old cases would make entertaining blog posts. So, this "story" will be a first in a series. (CAVEAT: Even though a lot of details are public record, the names and relevant identifying details have been altered in order to maintain any potential attorney-client privilege). Also, I will weave a little legal information in the story, but I'll try to keep it painless.
I once had clients early in my practice named Arnie and Ophelia Williams. When Ophelia died, they had just celebrated their 65th wedding anniversary. Sixty-five years! In my late 20's I thought that this was the most incredible thing I had ever encountered. Arnie and Ophelia were in their 80's. This is their story.
I met Arnie and Ophelia because they needed to do some estate planning. While they were old, both were mentally sharp. Arnie had a shock of white hair and brilliant blue eyes. Ophelia had a lot of health problems and Arnie had a gouty foot. Because of Arnie's foot and Ophelia's health, their insurance agent persuaded me to make a house call. They lived in a modest home, on a modest street, in a modest middle class neighborhood. They were worth millions.
Forty years earlier, they had lived in Virginia. Arnie worked at a manufacturing plant. Arnie received stock options as part of his compensation. While he was in his forties, Arnie retired and moved to Panama City. Arnie managed to parlay his stock holdings in the manufacturing company together with the investments he had made during his "working life" into a substantial portfolio by playing the stock market. He was a front runner in the whole "day trader" work from home movement of the early 90's.
The greatest sorrow of their lives was that they were never able to have children. Ophelia had no living relatives. Arnie had a nephew, Jerry, with whom they were close. Jerry lived out of state, but he visited regularly. I believe this part to be totally true because if there is one thing elderly clients will tell you when you are doing their will, it is which relatives come see them and which ones don't visit or call. [Go call your elderly relatives right now. This blog will be here in a half hour.]
So, Arnie and Ophelia executed Pour Over Wills and a Joint Revocable Trust with traditional estate tax planning for the time period. The trust left everything to Jerry. The Pour Over Will named Jerry and two friends of Arnie and Ophelia as their co-executors (in Florida we call the executor the Personal Representative). Likewise, the trust named Jerry and the two friends as successor Co-Trustees. Soon after they executed their documents, but before we could fully fund their trust, Ophelia died. Arnie died less than 30 days later. I've always thought he died of a broken heart because all that was really wrong with him was that gouty foot. He just went to bed and never got better. At the time, I thought his death was the most tragically romantic thing, ever.
Most everything that was not in the trust was in just Arnie's name, so in the end we only had to probate Arnie's Pour Over Will to transfer the rest of the assets into the trust. Unfortunately for me and Jerry, when we opened Arnie's safe deposit box we found original stock certificates for 65 different companies. Each of these stock certificates ultimately required 3 medallion endorsed signatures. So, that was a total of about 200 endorsed signatures from 3 people living in 3 different states. It took months to accomplish and to this day remains one of the most frustrating tasks I've ever encountered in a probate.
Meanwhile, back in Virginia a woman was dying. She was in her 70's and had one child, Rose. Rose was in her early 40's with strikingly orange-red hair and brilliant blue eyes. She was also a child of tragedy, having lived her entire life without her father who had died before she was even born. Just before taking her last breath, Rose's mother motioned her close and whispered in her ear that "I have to tell you something. The man you thought was your father wasn't your father. Your father lives in Florida. There's a shoebox in the top of my closet with your name on it with everything about your father in it."
Eventually, Rose got out that box, hired an investigator and tracked down her father. She tried to call him several times, but lost her nerve and hung up. Her husband finally made the call for her. A man answered the phone and when Rose asked for her father, Arnie Williams, she was told that he had recently died.
Jerry is the man who had to give Rose that bit of news, but he did not know then her relationship to his uncle. Soon after that call, Rose called me. In the face of her incredible story, all I could tell Rose to do was hire an attorney in Florida. I also had to warn Jerry that he might not inherit anything at all.
See, Rose was potentially a Pretermitted Child. In layman's terms, that means a child of which the deceased person was unaware when they signed their Will. A Pretermitted Child is entitled to the share of the deceased's estate to which they would have been entitled under the intestate statute. For an only child, that would have meant 100% of Arnie's estate.
About a week later, a local attorney called me on Rose's behalf. She had been to Florida to meet with him in person (and to also meet Jerry--her long lost cousin). The first thing he asked me was "Did Arnie have crazy orange hair and blue eyes?" In that shoebox Rose's mother had hidden in the top of the closet were pictures of a orange-red haired man in his 40's with brilliant blue eyes holding a baby which Rose knew to be herself. There were birthday cards for her 1st and 2nd birthday and letters. Jerry confirmed that Arnie had orange-red hair like Rose in his younger days. He also confirmed though family photos that the man holding baby Rose was most likely his uncle. Jerry does not think his Aunt Ophelia ever knew about Rose or the affair.
Because it was obvious that Arnie knew Rose existed, she was not a pretermitted child, and did not inherit anything from his estate. Jerry inherited 100%. When I last spoke to Jerry, he said that he and Rose continued to be in contact. Rose never held the inheritance against Jerry.
Through talks between Rose and Jerry comparing the respective lives of her mother and his uncle, Arnie's secrets were revealed. Rose's mother was married to Arnie's boss at the manufacturing company. She and Arnie had an affair, and Rose was the result. Before Rose was born, her mother's husband died in an accident at the plant. Although we will never know, I've always thought Arnie's somewhat early retirement and move had to of come about when baby Rose was very young since her hair and eyes were such an identifying trait. People back then were way better at keeping secrets, though, and also tended to turn a blind eye to such things. Who knows? The affair could have been a well kept secret or an "open secret." This part of Arnie and Rose's story will never be known.
So that is the story of Arnie and Ophelia, or rather, of Arnie and Rose.
The take aways from the story for me were:
1. Secrets rarely stay secret forever.
2. Attorneys should always ask their clients about children outside of marriage, and tell them an abbreviated version of this story in case there is a secret love child to be addressed.
3. No matter how well intentioned, the decisions you make as a parent do not always work out well.
4. If you create a secret like Arnie and Rose's mother did, maybe you should take it to your grave.
5. Call or visit your Elderly Relatives, they miss you and they're lonely. Ten minutes out of your day will totally make their week.
6. For the love of all, please put your stock holdings in an account. Do not hold original certificates. I cannot stress this one enough. It took years for $0.01 checks to quit arriving.
7. Naming more than two Co-Trustees or Co-Personal Representatives can result in unnecessary expense and hassle.
8. Address the potential of an unknown child in your will or trust to avoid what could have happened if Rose had either been dishonest or truly unknown to Arnie.
9. If you don't tell your estate planning attorney everything, including the embarrassing bits like a secret love child, your attorney cannot do an effective job.
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