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Subscribe to RSSSome do it with malice. Others, through a misguided notion that money or family heirlooms don't really matter to the person. Whatever the reason, the plight of the disinherited -- or those who may be cut out of the family wealth in the future --has been highlighted by a bitter legal battle between Australia’s “richest mom,” Gina Rinehart, and her three children.
Tony Mcdonough / EPA file
Gina Rinehart, Australia's richest person, want to cut three of her children from access to their stakes in the mining business she has run for the past 20 years.
The billionaire says it would be in the "best interests of the beneficiaries to force them to go to work" rather than let them inherit her mining empire.
Then there's Mary Beth Caschetta, whose father cut her out of his will in dramatic movie star style.
"There was a line in my father's will similar to what Joan Crawford used when she disinherited her daughter," says the 45-year-old medical writer and author from Massachusetts. "'I leave no bequest to my daughter for reasons known to her.'"
Caschetta, who wrote about being disinherited in theNew York Times' Modern Love column last December is just one of many people who've felt the sting of a relative's reproach from beyond the grave, often for reasons that are only clear to the deceased.
Disinheriting children or a spouse -- or everyone in the family -- is not uncommon and not limited to the rich, either. It can be spurred by hurt, spite, fear, experts say, or because the head of the family feels the heirs are “manifestly unsuitable” to manage the estate, as billionaire Rinehart claimed in The Australian.
Baffling and unexpected
"I don't think there is one simple answer as to why people are disinherited," says Caschetta, who was so baffled by her father's act that she decided to write a book on the subject. "You don't have to be gay. You don't have to be estranged. You don't have to be a chronic disappointment to your parents. It can literally happen to anyone."
Psychotherapist Ken Clark, a certified financial planner from Little Rock, Ark., says the deceased often has some wound, such as abandonment or infidelity, that has never been resolved -- and cutting off the heirs is a kind of final payback.
"The person who gets cut out of the will get a taste of how the other person has been hurt," Clark says.
Even for those who understand why they're being disinherited, the act can be painful.
"I was an abused child and adolescent and was thrown out of my house when I was 15 years old," says Drew Stevens, a 50-year-old marketing and business development consultant from Eureka, Miss. "My father and I had an estranged relationship. I found out that he died via a Google alert."
Being intentionally disinherited left him feeling "absolutely awful."
"When I read the will, I was in shock," says Stevens, whose younger brother was also cut off. "To me, it felt like one more opportunity to kick me in the head."
Egotism also comes into play. The wealthy may worry their heirs will squander the “only monument” they’ve left behind -- the money they’ve spent their whole lives accumulating, says Clark. But totally cutting someone from a will isn't really necessary
"We can create trusts that have income-only provisions, so you can't spend the principle,” Clark says. “Or you can name a trustee that monitors a child's behavior."
How commonly are people cut off?
New York attorney Jeffrey A. Asher says in the 16 years he's been practicing estate law, he's worked on hundreds of wills and that disinheritance comes up "quite often."
"Sometimes it's as simple as the client has life insurance set aside for one child over another," he says. "Or the client's child is part of the business and the other children or not."
Asher sees disagreements, anger, resentment and disparate treatment between children as common drivers for disinheritance. Or the heir is perceived as not needing the money.
"The shame and the reality is that the [person] may really need the inheritance and just hasn't been open about his situation," says Asher.
Not just about money
The pain of disinheritance can be even worse when the estate is distributed outside the family.
Tobi Kosanke, a 47-year-old geologist from Hempstead, Tex., says that when her uncle passed away, he left everything, including a slew of family heirlooms, to a stranger.
"Our uncle was our last close relative and my brother and I were cut out of his will," says Kosanke. "He left everything to his dog sitter. All of the family heirlooms, including my wedding silver, were left to a stranger. My mother would be spinning in her grave."
Caschetta has heard from about 100 disinherited people since her New York Times essay came out.
“When I was disinherited, it felt like a psychologically violent attack,” she says. “I felt terrible and I know other people I've spoken to felt that way, too."
FAMOUS POSTHUMOUS SNUBS:
- Joan Crawford,aka "Mommie Dearest," completely cut out Christina and Christopher, her two oldest adopted children, and left her other two adopted children $77,500 each.
- Tony Curtis chose "not to provide" for his five children, including actress Jamie Lee Curtis, in his final will.
- Bette Davis disinherited her daughter B.D. Hyman (and her children) after Hyman published a tell-all book about their relationship, "My Mother's Keeper."
- Marlon Brando left behind a $30 million estate. However, none of it went to his grandson Tuki, the son of Brando's deceased daughter Cheyenne.
- Michael Jackson left behind no provisions for his father, Joe Jackson, or any of his eight siblings, in his last will and testament. The estate, which exceeds $500 million, did place assets in a family trust to benefit Jackson's children (as well as a number of charities). Jackson's mother, Katherine, was named beneficiary of the trust and appointed guardian of his children.
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I suppose I'm in the minority here, but I can relate to Gina. Sometimes no matter what values and sense of responsibility you try to instill in your offspring fails, regardless of the cause. Bottom line, leaving large sums of money to your children who have not demonstrated financial responsibility is a bad idea. You may think you're doing them a favor but you're not.
If your kids are good money managers then chances are they don't need yours; if they can't manage their own finances then they will blow through whatever you leave them.
My kids have shown no interest in my money, and that's fine with me - my estate will go to a local charity. But I intend to spend as much as I can before I die....
That's easy for someone who has lived a "priveleged" life to say. I've worked hard all my life, helped my kids with their college, while they too worked full time jobs. But I got behind on my property taxes. It would have been nice to have recieved a little bit from her life insurance to help with the taxes. It's hard to live in fear every day of the possibility of losing your home to taxes or to IRS. some one like you doesn't think about that. you give it charities that have an abundance of idiots giving all their money to them .
1. A family member in our extended family disinherited some family members and was proud of it. After she passed and the will was public, she would have been astonished that none of these people cared. She had burned too many bridges with her mean-spiritedness that they didn't want things to remind them of her.
2. I've found out a will isn't necessarily binding. A close relative named two executors who agreed that the division of property wasn't fair and agreed between themselves, with the attorney approving, to divide the property another way.
A friend of mine was never legally married to his wife (they had a fancy ceremony but skipped the paperwork due to her receiving money because her late husband was killed in active duty), so after they split up (because she was bringing other guys home to sleep with in her husband's bed within three months of the wedding), when she finally got him to move his stuff out of the house and he had agreed to give her his half of the house (even though he had no job, no place to go, and every legal right to stay there, and she had another place to stay), she had him served with papers suing him for possession of the house. Her father was helping her ex move (because her parents actually love him to death), and he did not find this amusing. He informed her quite calmly that she was going to write up a contract agreement acknowledging that she and my friend were never legally married and he owed her nothing at all and was giving up his ownership of the house of his own free will. They got it written up and signed, and two days later her dad called her up to let her know she'd been cut out of his will completely. The estate is worth over $3M all together. Sometimes people are cut out of wills because they are sh*t human beings and they deserve it.
My parents worked hard and gave me love and shelter, They taught me right and wrong,They taught me the ethics of hard work and the joy of accomplishment. It is not they who owe me but I who owe them.The whole notion that parents or grandparents owe their adult children or adult grandchildren anything is beyond comprehension, They gave you life,What more could you ask for...what have you given them.
I'm glad you had normal parents, but you should be aware there are plenty of us out here who have been ripped off thanks to the television culture we were largely raised by.
I'm certain both my parents have disinherited me. LOL
Only sleezy liberals would expect an inheritance.
Only a sleazy right wing lunatic would post such an idiotic comment.
Good observation, Gumps. Reagan_Patriot is so consumed by party hatred that his judgment is clouded.
Reagan_Patriot, how about getting another blog name, I think the Gipper would be ashamed of you.
My own daughters have snubbed me for years after my health began to fail and I couldn't work anymore.Oldest went as far as to send her BF to force me to cough up.Instead he got the crap beat out of him & is in prison,as is my oldest.The Youngest left with her mother & has been gone 12 years.I now have a bit of an estate and I'll be damned if I leave anything to them.The last line of my will reads as follows "To my ex wife and my two daughters,I leave this message- You bitches can't hurt me anymore"
I thought Ms. Rinhart as the richest woman in Austrialia was the disinherited, she sure does look she has been.
You know what's even worse than that? Having a state-funded university sue the estate of an elderly woman because they got written out of a will. Sure, they were in the will at one point, after their inexperienced v.p. of fundraising with a six-figure salary wined and dined the old lady. But 2 weeks before she died, with her family around her, the woman changed her will to leave the last family home to her elderly sister and two nieces. The university didn't see it that way, and sued her estate.
Did the judge, who is an alumni of the university, rule in favor of the new will? Of course not. The university won the case.
This is the new justice in America, and typical southern Louisiana politics.
The Gina Rinehart story is a little more complicated than this story lets on:
Rinehart accrued her billions (she is said to be worth $18 billion) after inheriting her father’s Hancock Prospecting iron ore business. The widowed mother of four is trying to shut her three eldest children out of their inheritance, calling them slackers and “manifestly unable” to handle the money that they are due.
Lang Hancock set up the Hope Margaret Hancock trust for his grandchildren, John Hancock, Bianca Rinehart and Hope Rinehart-Welker before he died in 1992. The trust is in their name.
The children are suing their mother, arguing that she should be removed from the position of trustee after behaving ”deceitfully” and with “gross dishonesty.” According to court documents obtained by ABC News, Rinehart warned her children that, lest they make her trustee, they could face capital tax gains up to $142 million, which would lead to bankruptcy.
The children’s suit alleges that she gave them less than one business day to make the decision and that she threatened “not to act in the best interests of the beneficiaries (children) unless the beneficiaries signed a deed that contained such terms.” In the agreement the children feel they were forced to make, Rinehart extended her control of the trust until 2068. The youngest of the three kids would be 83 at that point and Rinehart would be 114.
The $2.4 billion fortune the Rinehart kids were expecting to inherit last year could have had an income of up to $250 million a year.
In a letter to the children on Sept. 3, Mrs. Rinehart demanded that the children cede control of the fund to her lest their inexperience leads them all to bankruptcy. Rinehart’s youngest daughter, Ginia, agrees with her mother, saying that her siblings were ”not fit and proper persons to be trustees.”
I have never expected anything from anyone and have never received anything. I don't have anything to leave anyone. I'm just trying to stay afloat and it's a real challenge but I consider myself fortunate.
I have been in the position to witness the animosity, greed, resentfulness and bitterness plans for an estate can generate. I have a middle aged friend who is unemployed. She moved in with her elderly mother who is supporting her and paying all her bills. At the same time she is encouraging the mother's resentment of the other siblings who don't call or visit or show their mother that they care for her. She is trying to "help" her mother arrange things so that she will be given the house and other assets before the mother dies and there will be nothing left for the other siblings. She figures if her mother signs everything over to her before death there will be nothing to probate. This friend has convinced herself that she is entitled to everything because she is the only child who cares for the mother and therefore the only one who deserves anything. It's all so sad to witness this situation and listen to my friend who is deluded in her self righteous position. I honestly don't think she has a shred of insight into her own motivation and is convinced that her siblings are undeserving and she alone is entitled.
As an addendum: This woman and her mother are both injustice collectors whose main topic of conversation are the resentments they harbor and have harbored for years and years and, by the way, both are two of the most depressed, anxious and unhappy people I have ever known.
I've already been told by my parents that my brother and I get nothing. It all goes to my two daughters. I am okay with this. It is their money, so who am I to say what they do with it? The only issue is that my brother doesn't know yet.
"The pain of being disinherited", you got to be kidding. I would love to be in that position. If I was I would not do things that would piss those who had the money, so when it came time to get the inheritance. I would be getting something. But fo those how think they are owed it. The old saying goes. Do unto others as you would want them to do unto you.........
I agree that no one owes us an inheritance. I also feel it's an individual's right to disinherit any of their children (or other relatives) from their Wills. I had a sister who stole substantial amounts of money from my parents under the guise of "helping" them with their business. I'm glad they have disinherited her, for reasons known.
To say that it is painful is putting it "lightly" a month ago I found out that I and my children were disiherited by my mother. No reason was given really but my foster sister told me that it was because "I went to CA". LOL
LET'S SEE, HERE'S MY STORY, I was born down in the lower Rio Grand Valley of Texas, in a little town called La Feria, TX. my mother was a poor migrant worker, died two hours after giving birth to me, she hemmoraged to death, a senseless death, that could have been avoided. I was a "breech baby" which complicated things, but she was angry at my biological father and refused to go to the hospital. He packed up his other children, his mistress and high tailed it to CA. leaving me behind.
My grandmother was the mid-wife, and distraught at the death of her "favorite" daughter, I was blamed for her death, abandoned by my father, she untied the umblical cord and threw me away, in trash heap. ("A story, I overheard when I was growning up") My mother's brother or sister-in-law found me midest papers and trash and ran with me to the nearest pharmacy, where the pharmacist retied or clamped the cord. My biological mother's brother (my uncle & his wife) raised me as a "twin" to their baby who was only 18 days older than me.
All my life I've dealt with rejections, persecution, crtitcisms from family, for most of my life not knowing nor understanding "why" but I was determined to prove them all wrong. I loved my adoptive mother to the end. The same with the "only" brothers & sisters I've ever known. My adoptive mother passed away just recently & I discovered that my beloved mother totaly dis-inherited me. "HER" biological daughter and son, have sense stopped talking to me. I guess she never could see me completely as her daughter, although she breast fed me, and raised me like a twin to her son. "then why" I am sure is on your mind. I was dis-inherited -> because I went to CA to meet my biological brothers and sister. My Biological father had already passed away. But she was so outraged and overcome with jealousy, she dis-owned me and my children and dis-inherited us. More, she stated in her will that she wanted my "foster sister" to be recongnized as if she were her biological daughter. "WOW" this woman breast fed me, held me in her arms from the first day of my birth, and I can not EVER REMEMBER HER GIVING ME A HUG AS A CHILD AND TELLING ME "i LOVE YOU" "the humor" here, is that, I was dis-inherited by a family, that really doesn't have much of anything". Sad thing is, I NEVER ASKED FOR ANYTHING. But just the idea that it was done, was "painful" My sister and brother whom I've loved all my life and since stopped talking to me. My strength comes from the faith, love and trust that I have in GOD, I've always believed that everything happens for a reason. My children give me the courage to look past this. they are my joy and my pride. Thank God that she did teach me to "work" and I've passed that on my children. And I don't need any trinkets to remember what I live while under her roof. believe me it was not easy, but I loved her just the same, "she was my mother"
My dad showed himself to be the way I knew him...hurt me while growing up and then hurt me when he died...nothing but hurt for his only little girl...a gift from heaven. Did he ever even want me?
Puhleeez! Where is it written that a parent is somehow obligated to leave anything to his/her children....a person works their entire lifetime and they can't do what they want with what they earned and accumulated?
Sounds kinda selfish to me....
A parents sole responsibility is to raise their children to be self sufficient and productive....if they have been successful in that there is no need for anyone to EXPECT anything monetary....heirlooms, pictures and the like sure...that is part of the family history....but, everything else is for the person who earned it to decide.
But yes it hurts and the sad thing is the parent knows it hurts...mine just loved hurting me...I forgive him as I always did...he was just not the dad I deserved.
My sister and I split the money. My sister had her half all spent before she got out the door. I still have my half 20 years later.
Inheritance? Well don't count on it...it's not your money afterall. People will be capricious and unpredictable. Here is where the Republicans with their entitlement BS should be allowed free rein. Earn your own GD riches.
I do not expect anything from my parents when the time arrives, I wish they would spend it on themselves and enjoy what they have worked so hard for all of thier lives and I tell them that alot..What I do for them now or in the future is out of love and respect ..not for a handout after they have passed..Money could never replace them !
for the LOVE of money is the root of all kinds of evil. and its not just because of the money, but rather the false sense of security and the broken relationships , nothing can heal and nothing permanent , nothing makes sense til one is born again through Christ. Nothing and abandonment can lead to truly faith knowing who you are and working for it on your own and knowing the Lord of all can carry you through for the sake of others.
My grandfather left his entire estate to my three cousins, the children of his eldest child who died of cancer. He left nothing to his other four grandchildren. Not only did he leave them everything, he paid for their college educations (lawyer, pharmacologist) and provided not a cent to the others.
Fortunately, my other cousin and two sisters married well, so they are well off financially. I am the only one of all the grandchildren who struggles every day to try to make ends meet, while my cousins own a $12.5 million dollar farm corporation (ironically, the farm that I grew up on). I know exactly how it feels.
"Our uncle was our last close relative and my brother and I were cut out of his will," says Kosanke. "He left everything to his dog sitter. All of the family heirlooms, including my wedding silver, were left to a stranger. My mother would be spinning in her grave."
Uh, if it were YOUR wedding silver, your uncle couldn't have willed it away. Something's missing from this story.
You're right. I was thinking the very same thing when I read that. So often when you read stories like these, it does in fact seem like things don't add up. Why can't the writer dig a little and ask the hard quetions.
It already happened to me. I had one parent who had nothing to do with me and the other was abusive. I haven't had anything to do with them in years. I have a sibling who is a bottom feeder who took advantage of the situation and scammed everything out of them. It hurts a lot to know I'm rejected and left without anything, but on the positive side, not dealing with these horrible people has given me so much freedom to build a great life. I am traveling the world and have replaced the old junk I didn't receive with new pictures, memories, and my own heirlooms. That Gina Rinehart is a greedy hag. She fought her stepmother for 14 years for money now intends to leave it to one child, probably the family bottom feeder who is taking advantage of her. Considering the Grandfather left it to them, I hope they fight the cow for years to come.