My father desperately begged me, ‘Son, get a lawyer. That woman is going to take away your inheritance!’ My stepmother kept $1 million after he died

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‘I would eventually learn that Dad was right.’

I am the only son of parents who divorced when I was 4 years old. My father remarried soon after that, but had no more children.

I was able to visit Dad a few weeks before he died. He had had a leg amputated and was aware that he was likely to go soon, but he was still in reasonably good spirits. I did check with the county clerk, where I found a copy of Dad’s will. It left everything to the trust. I made a special effort to keep relations cordial, phoning my stepmom every Sunday evening. Finally, after six years of naïvely pretending that things were as I hoped, my stepmother started mentioning in our phone conversations how she was spending large amounts of money.

My own lawyer told me that if it was true, she would have no responsibility to comply with my dad’s wishes, and I had no case. He also said it was extremely unlikely that her lawyer would lie in the affidavit, as it would mean professional suicide if found out. Believing the best in people is not an estate plan. People are notoriously unpredictable, never more so in the aftermath of a death and when there are large sums of money involved. In fact, people can be equally capricious and untrustworthy when there are small sums of money involved. As well as being motivated by greed, they are also motivated by hidden resentments and their own belief that they are entitled to the entire kit and kaboodle.

What can we learn from these unfortunate events? Sometimes, these issues are best ironed out in a prenuptial agreement, especially when there are children involved. Your father was either misguided or bamboozled by his wife when he attempted to set up a trust for you. It may have been that he felt unable to stand up to the demands of his second wife, and belatedly alerted you to his anguish that his wishes would not be upheld after his death.

 

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