Introduction

A Test of Wills - Introduction

I am in an estate battle with my one living sister. I am an attorney. The estate is located in New Jersey. The executor is a cousin who, for some reason which remains unclear to me, cannot stand me. His view of the world that was my family is one where I am an unjust monster who received the benefits of my father's goodwill throughout his life, while my sister was Cinderella who was deprived of a father's love and his consequential financial assistance. The Executor's goal is to "right the wrongs" rained upon my sister, using his power as an Executor as his sword and the writing of my parents' Last Wills and Testament as his coats of armor. He is misguided by skewed memories, guilt, and an endless supply of hostility and hatred. Yet, he has the Wills as his shields and his bottomless pit of disdain as his stomping ground.

I write this blog in the hopes of providing anyone who reads this a shield of armor for themselves. I write this as an anecdotal tale of all that can go wrong if you die either without a Last Will and Testament or with one that has not been reviewed and revised in years. I write this blog to explain to families that perhaps placing a family member in the position of Executor is not such a good idea, rather placing someone farther removed from the emotional devastation that is inherently death is a better and more prudent decision. I write this blog not as an advertisement; but rather as a saving grace. 

Most people are perfectly capable of putting their wishes on paper without the benefit of an attorney. Creating and validating a Will does not need to cost much money. However, if your reason for not drafting and signing a Will is money, what you may think you are saving by not hiring someone to get it right, could cost your Estate 1000 times to fix by those you leave behind, those whom you may have wanted in life to obtain the greatest benefits from your Estate upon your death. So, I write this blog to impart some level of urgency on anyone who reads it, to go out, and if you don't have a Will in place to either find a template online or find an attorney you trust to write a Will, sign it and have it witnessed. If you already have a will I write this to impart the importance of keeping it up-to-date. Go and review it. Make changes; or alternatively, at least confirm that it is what you want. Make sure that when you die, those you love are cared for financially and emotionally. Make sure they are not either left with a State to do your bidding or left at the unrepentant mercy of a vendetta seeking family member.

One might think that attorneys don't find themselves in personal legal battles. Well, just as doctors are not immune to illness, and therefore require medical attention, so neither are attorneys immune to injustices requiring legal assistance. I am in a battle of wills. Oh yes... the one piece that I forgot to mention is that the Executor is an attorney, as well.

A Test of Wills - History

My mother died one year ago tomorrow, the 2nd of Nissan on the Hebrew calendar or March 26th, 2012 on the Latin calendar. My father died on the 8th day of Av on the Hebrew Calendar or the 27th of July, 2012. While my mother's death was not a surprise, and in some sense might have been deemed a merciless relief, my father's death was sudden and tragic. He had been planning a life after 9 years of taking care of my mother post-stroke. During that time, he proved himself a devoted and loving husband. But, after her death, he wanted something for himself. That was apparently not to be.
  
My father went into the hospital on a Thursday evening, "for the weekend" I was told. It was a urinary tract infection which had been left to linger and would take the weekend to clear up. My father was dead by early Friday morning. I got to the hospital in time to see a ring of nurses and doctors hovering over his body with medical equipment and drugs in hand. Blood was pouring from his mouth and nose. It was clear there was little left of him. I asked them to stop what they were doing and back off. I asked that his DNR be respected. I asked that they allow him to die in peace. I knew that it would be, not only a terrible loss, but the start of a nightmare. 

At the time of my father's death, he was in the process of changing his will, for him a daunting task that was never completed. He did not like the idea of paying the attorney to do such seemingly minimal work for such exorbitant fees. My father hated paying attorneys. While he knew I made a living from my clients and the bills they pay, he hated the entire concept. He had asked me to draft numerous copies, which I had dutifully done, though I warned him against letting me have anything to do with his will because I knew myself to be a beneficiary. Knowing that my drafts would be problematic, he never used the copies I provided. Dad was indecisive in regard to whether to spend money using his former attorney or find a new one. He did not want the children of my eldest sister to get anything but a trust left under my mother's will because he did not feel that they knew him at all. We argued incessantly because I did not want them left out and promised myself that if he chose to leave them out, I would provide for them. In the end, he died with a 1998 Will in place that he knew contained several toxic provisions, not the least of which was the appointment of the Executor.

The Executor was put in place in 1998, a very different time in my parents' lives. I was 28 with two children and living in Israel. My eldest sister was barely 40 with one child, in the process of a divorce and relocated from Seattle back to New York. My middle sister was just 36 and married, living between two homes. It was a time in flux. It was a happy period in our lives and one that only contained the dischord that can be found in chaos. At the time, the Executor was the kind cousin whom we all loved. He had a dog named Cassie who became a huge influence in my eldest child's life. We visited his home often. My parents spoke fondly of him. We were both lawyers and I looked up to the years of knowledge that he had that I had not yet amassed.  He was the perfect fit. He would make certain that we were all cared for if anything happened to my parents.

In 1998 when my parents signed their wills my father feared that if he died, which seemed a likely possibility, my mother would be left with three girls who might bully her. He was probably right. Alternatively, he worried that if both of them should die, our eldest sister would bully the other two. There, he was certainly right. Our eldest sister was kind, caring, very loving, but selfish, self-centered and a bully. She made no bones about her decision that if they died she would raid the house and make our middle sister and I come find her. Dad's idea was that the Executor, my mother's nephew, would protect her from us, or my middle sister and I from our eldest. It all made perfect sense. However, as the years went on and as life changed, the decision went from being prudent to sorely misguided, something that transpires in many families.

In 2008, our eldest sister committed suicide. That was the last time we, as a family unit, saw or heard from the Executor. Her tragic death is the subject of another blog, but it plays a role here insofar as it marks the beginning of the end of any ties to the Executor until our parents' death. You see, the Executor had been hired by my father to help my sister in some personal battles she was having. He had been one of the few people who knew, prior to her death, that she was suicidal. He had been told by one of her children's fathers that she represented a potential danger to her children. He did nothing to protect her and perhaps even did not believe the father. It came out two years later, in a series of brutally cruel emails that he felt me partially responsible for my sister's suicide.

In 2010, upon the death of another cousin, one with whom I had been close years earlier, and one with whom the Executor had been very close, I made contact with the other cousin's family. We had lost contact many years earlier and then our ties further diminished when my sister died, but it did not change that I wanted to pay my respects. At that time, I began receiving cruel and unnecessarily harsh emails from the Executor. He professed an omniscience to all things family and promised that any response that I made to his cruel diatribes would be met with harsher responses. I have debated publishing those email diatribes only because they are illustrative of his cruelty and instability but will not yet do so. At the time, I instead decided to involve my father who was still deemed the family patriarch and upon whom I could rely for words of wisdom. In my father's eyes, the Executor's own words proved his undoing, as my father found the baseness of the emails beyond words that should ever be used, nonetheless among family.

In late 2010, my father, after reviewing many of the emails and after considering the family situation, decided that it would be best to remove the Executor and to put someone else in place. He sent an email to the Executor which was met with a nasty response. My father, unfortunately did not at that time go speak with an attorney. Taking care of my mother had proven an increasingly difficult task and my father found the time constraints limiting.  
 
The only copy of the email we could find post my parents' death was an email copy my father had sent from his computer to me. In the State of New Jersey, if a Will is to be revised, it must be revised in writing, and witnessed. Without written revisions, any wishes my father had or may have had are not deemed valid. Here's where the Test of Wills begins...