Community Chat

[glb613]

On 5/14/2014 Venus said:

I have a situation where I want to leave a large amount of money to a charity, skip my children and leave the rest to my grandchildren. I was told I could write in my Will that if anyone tried to contest it they would lose their ability to get anything from the Estate. I'm sure hoping that is true. I'm sure they will be furious when they find out, but they have brought this on themselves. And I left some to my grandchildren, so in my mind, that's good enough. I also wrote a letter to be delivered to them when I die explaining why I did what I did.

My Mother left everything to my sisters and me. I found out in the state of Illinois you can't exclude a spouse. They are entitled to 15% of the estate whether they are listed in the will or not. My Father gave up his claim because he didn't need to money. I don't think there is the same type of protection for children. If I was going to do this, I'd be sure to go through a lawyer.

[CelticCrafter]

When I was settling my fathers estate my siblings started to get nit-picky with each other and I would hear the fallout from it.

Once I threatened to wash my hands of it and turn it over to an attorney it stopped.