Even Anna Screwed Up the Will
I love this picture of Anna Nicole Smith. She looks tough, sober, and she seems to be walking with a purpose. Love her or hate her, you have to wonder why, with so much at stake, she didn’t name her daughter Dannielynn in her will. Today Howard K. Stern – executor of Smith’s estate and one-time supposed Baby Daddy to Dannielynn – filed papers requesting the now one-year-old girl be named the sole heir to Smith’s estate. Why didn’t Smith’s will provide for her daughter? Simple: she hand’t gotten around to it. When Smith had the will drafted, she only had one son, Daniel. No updates were made after his death, three days after Dannielynn’s birth.
The current will states that “although she did not expect to have any children in the future, if she did, she wanted them to share equally in the trust created for Daniel …” Is that good enough? Maybe not.
Although Dannielynn is entitled to the estate of Anna Nicole Smith, Stern likely wants to firm things up. After all, millions of dollars may flow into the estate if the dust ever settles on the estate of Smith’s late sugar daddy – I mean husband – J. Howard Marshall.
You’d think someone would have pressed her to make changes to her will. Maybe they did. Maybe not. But Smith was strung out on all kinds of drugs, her attorney had some serious ulterior motives, and her son had just died.
What’s your excuse? Drawing up a will is uncomfortable territory to be sure, but it’s also neccesary. Do you know where your kids will end up if anything happens to you? Do you have life insurance to cover their housing and education? Let me guess… along with all that denial that nothing’s ever going to happen to you and a deep desire to avoid all unpleasantness, you just don’t think you have enough assets to merit a will. Am I close?
Maybe that’s what Anna Nicole thought too. If she thought it through. Sound ridiculous? That she might not have thought she had enough to bother with re-drafting her will? It’s no sillier than you not having a will. Creating a will is pretty simple and if you do the grunt work yourself, it doesn’t have to be expensive.
Do it.
Do it yourself online
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