Trial & Heirs: Famous Fortune Fights! ...and what you can learn from celebrity errors

Entertaining, understandable, and a must read for anyone interested in planning for their own estate. You will gain ideas and ask more questions regarding your estate plan. You will be more prepared when you discuss your planning with your legal team.

This is an amiable guide that is not so much about how to write a will, as to why you should have a good, legal, up-to-date one in the first place. Estate planning is not a subject many of us like to dwell upon, but the authors serve up their medicine with a large spoonful of sugar. We get a front-row view of some infamous brangles over wills, or the lack of a will.One of the most interesting, for me, was Chief Justice Burger's 176-word will (I wish the authors had printed it). You'd think a Chief Justice of the United States Supreme Court would get it right, but "the family of the late Chief Justice was forced to spend thousands of dollars extra in probate court" just to clarify his last testament."Trial & Heirs" might even make you a little paranoid--"Are my relatives going to behave like that when I pass on?" you ask yourself. The actual amount you leave behind doesn't seem to matter to some people. They'll argue over pennies. Frank Sinatra added "a very detailed 'No Contest clause' (also called [a] 'terror clause') in his will" just so that anyone who contested his will would be completely disinherited.The 'Terror Clause' could be very appropriate if you've been married more than once, and might leave multiple spouses and/or ex-spouses behind when you pass on.Incidentally, most of the chapters in this book include a section headed "Avoid a family fight!"And don't end up like the farmer, who waited until the last minute to make out his will. His neighbors discovered it scratched onto the fender of his tractor with his pocket knife.The farmer was under the tractor."Trial & Heirs" is a useful and interesting book. You might think at first that the authors are tooting their own legal horns, but if you're like me you'll be: (1) convinced of their sincere good intentions; (2) impressed by their legal acumen; (3) convinced to write or update your will, thus benefiting from the mistakes of deceased, whom the authors use as examples, many of them quite rich and famous (one of my most common exclamations while reading this book was: "I didn't know he/she was dead!")***review copy supplied by authors

Loved this book, I've been wanting to read it for years but was waiting for it on kindle (so far it's not). It was worth reading in paperback; everything I thought it would be! very interesting.

Blow by blow screwups from the "Rich and Infamous" families NOT doing their estate planning.Not a dry book! Interesting and educational!

This book was very interesting and easy to read. I will keep it as an easy reference. Thank you for writing such an informative book.

For anyone who writes on the topic of estate planning, it's challenging to keep the general audiences attention as you dive into the complexities. The authors utilize the stories of deceased celebrities in a very positive way to educate and inform the readers on mistakes anyone can make in the estate planning process. The size of a celebrities estate vs. the general public generally doesn't make a difference since these mistakes in estate planning don't matter based upon the magnitude of wealth. Very interesting read for anyone who wants to learn more about estate planning.Paul Caspersen, author of the book "Direction Memo(tm): How to Write a Letter of Instructions for Your Estate Plan."

Practical and in plain English

Boring.

Easy to understand

we both thought that it was a good read and a salutory lesson in what not to do with your fortune.