Wills With A Difference
Friday, November 13th, 2009Your cheap will is drawn up to help your loved ones sort out the disposal of your estate when you’ve passed away. Whilst yours may be simple, here are a few with some quirks to them.
Make A Will Don’t Leave It to Chance
It is sensible to make a will. The majority of us realize that, but actually getting around to it seems such a hassle. How much consideration went in these “wills with a difference”?
Even the celebrated magician and escape artist, Harry Houdini, couldn’t escape death. Having died from a burst appendix, one of his biggest surprises came with the reading of his will. His magicians supplys went to his former partner Theodore, who was also his brother. His magical powers failed on the next section – his ample library of books on magic and the supernatural. He left these to the American Society for Psychical Research, but with the requirement that their research officer J Malcolm Bird, who additionally was the editor of their journal, stood down. They turned down the terms the compilation was given to the Library of Congress.
The white rabbits that he employed in his tricks came out of their hats and were divided around the kids of friends. Continuing the strange style, his left his wife 10 words, which was a secret code, with the avowal that he would employ these words to reach her from the afterlife. Each year for ten years, following his death, she dutifully held séances, but Houdini never made contact.
Kozmic Blues and rock singer Janis Joplin had a short but memorable history. She wrote several rock classics and four albums, including “To Love Somebody” and “Me and Bobby McGee”. After years of substance abuse, she died from an overdose, aged 27. Two days before her death in 1970 her cheap will the sum of 2,500 dollars to fund an all night wake at her favourite pub so that her friends could “get blasted after I’m gone.” It must have been some celebration – that was a sizable amount of cash back in 1970.
We’ve all read about people that, randomly, donate all their estate to the cats’ home, much to the disbelief of their family. Many family feuds start when a will is read. As long as there is no reason to doubt the clear thinking and freewill of the person when the will is written, there is often little that can be done to object to such a decision.
Quirks aside, if you pass on without writing a will, those who you would wish to inherit will not necessarily be the ones that do so. You might have a partner of many years, but if you’re not married or in a legal partnership, he or she won’t receive your estate, heedless of your designs and promises. This can be sad when it’s not clearly understood and can cause terrible financial consequences.
The current way to get your will under way is to go online and locate a wills online . However simple your wishes are, it’s advisable to get the professionals to write it for you and you can be sure that you’re leaving things exactly how you would wish them to be.
