I can only write my wife and "family" into the will, huh?

Now, to any legal experts reading this do know I’m recalling this from memory so if there are any slight errors, forgive me, this happened long ago and I’ve forgotten lots of wee details.Anyway, many years ago. My grandfather was at the end of his rope, and really needed to sort his affairs and get his estate doled out properly. The unfortunate part was that his two kids were…not really here. My dad had died a few years prior, and my aunt had suffered a nasty stroke and was not mentally sound, surrounded by people who pretty much sought only to get more money from the estate.My mom, however, was still around. In fact since my mom was mostly staying at home to take care of me my grandfather generously stepped in and helped pay our rent for many, many years after my dad died, and would have sent me to college as well (I’ll explain this down in the comments, as it kinda goes outside this story.) So my mom and grandfather weren’t strangers at all.So when things began sort of winding down for my grandfather, seeing as he had no biological children left (only one grandchild, me. I had a half brother but he committed suicide, unfortunately), he opted to have his will rewritten so that my mom and I would get most of the estate whereas my aunt would get some of the cash to ensure continued care in assisted living.His lawyers pushed back hard, claiming they wouldn’t allow him to write non-family into the will. Because apparently I wasn’t family enough to count as my dad and mom weren’t married. They tried to accuse us of using my grandfather and claim my grandfather was not of sound mind, but he very much was even as his time was running out. He was a sharp man when it came to stuff like this.So as the lawyers protested, he asked what their definition of family was. “Well, wife, children, cousins, etc."He asked for it in writing. Lawyers, confused, offered it up in writing what they considered to be family in this case. That’s when he pulls his trap card:"Okay then, in that case I will be marrying Kolbentine’s mom. Therefore she will be my wife, and fully entitled to be written into the will, along with Kolbentine himself.”“Wait, you can’t–”“Oh, but I can, you said my wife, therefore by your own rules, once married, she is able to be written into the will AND take over my benefits after my death."So that’s how my mom and grandfather got married (purely for legal reasons). Lawyers tried to stop it, but again my grandfather was proven to be of sound mind even up until his death, so there was nothing they could really do.The best part? This was never the intention, but time was running short (my grandfather had a matter of weeks at this point), and it ended up helping us out further because his pension and health insurance (through the military) carried through to my mom because of the marriage, so thanks for that one, lawyers! via /r/MaliciousCompliance https://ift.tt/2A8S9tb

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October 14, 2018 at 12:53AM
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