I'm taking an estate planning course this semester that covers a significant portion of trusts and wills. Apparently, Anna Nicole (who already had a pretty most famous will contest) died without a will, making this the juicist intestate battle since Howard Hughes' intestate fortune was challenged.
Assuming Anna Nicole's estate eventually gets the significant chunk of change left by her dead millionaire husband, her lack of a will means her estate will pass to her husband and natural children. Because the child is a minor, all of it would go to her husband, assuming they were legally married. If not, all of it goes to the child and the father can fight to try and manage it. Assuming that she was legally married to her husband Howard K. Stern (no relation to the king of all media Howard Stern), then he would get all of her estate, but only if the child is his. If she is not his child, and they were not legally married, he gets squat. So, whoever is the father gets to basically manage the child's money, and probably would get custody over the child (another independent battle). Hence, the fight to establish parenthood. "Not the parent" and "not married" equals "no piece of the estate." It's a little more complex than this, and because I'm not a lawyer, I am not attempting to explain it legally anyway. This is just the big picture summary based off of something I saw on something like E! True Hollywood Story.
Given that Howard K. Stern is a lawyer, however, I'm surprised he didn't anticipate any of these problems and simply create a will for her (or more likely, get an independent lawyer to do so), which would avoid most, if not all of this whole issue. Guess this turns into an expensive lesson for him. Way to represent UCLA and the West Coast, Bahama Man. This whole thing reminds me of a Jerry Springer show.
Wikipedia gives its rundown of this tale of woe and wills if you were interested:
Anna Nicole Smith
Howard K. Stern.
Saturday, February 10, 2007
Why Anna Nicole shows that you need a will
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