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Path: utzoo!laura
From: laura@utzoo.UUCP (Laura Creighton)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: What is property?
Message-ID: <5406@utzoo.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 3-Apr-85 04:24:19 EST
Article-I.D.: utzoo.5406
Posted: Wed Apr  3 04:24:19 1985
Date-Received: Wed, 3-Apr-85 04:24:19 EST
References: <764@bunker.UUCP> <862@ucbtopaz.CC.Berkeley.ARPA>, <775@bunker.UUCP>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
Lines: 21

Gary, I don't think that you have ever been involved in a will battle.
They are awful. Simply saying ``I bequeath X to Y'' is not good enough.
Z, who didn't get anything, and wants stuff will get his lawyer in to
demonstrate that the deceased either owed something to Z, or was out of
his mind when he wrote the will -- ``being of sound mind and body'' to
the contrary.

There are some good cases where a man was kicked out of home by his father
and went off to make a fortune. As he lived he never gave his family a penny,
and when he wrote his will he put in a paragraph to the effect that since
they have never done anything good for him while he was alive they were
jolly well not going to get anything from him while he was dead.

The family contested the will and won.

I think that all wills should be read and settled while the property
owner is still alive. This approach will fail in the case of accidental
death, though.

Laura Creighton
utzoo!laura