Q: What wording should beneficiaries use if they want to reassign part of their inheritance?
I'm the executor of my father's estate. He meant to divide his estate into six equal parts, for his five living children and the widow of his one pre-deceased child. He wrote the will without the help of a lawyer, and inadvertently left out his daughter-in-law by referring to her as his "daughter." The rest of the beneficiaries agree that he meant to include her. A lawyer told me that I can't just divide the will 6 ways. I must get permission in writing from each beneficiary who agrees to give up 1/6 of their inheritance. It's a small estate and I've already spent a lot on the lawyer, so I'm hoping a lawyer here will tell me how the permission letters should be worded.
A:
I think you have two ways to accomplish this:
1) Have the other 5 people each sign an "assignment" of 1/6th of their inheritance to the DIL. That would cause everybody to get 1/6th each I believe (assuming everybody signs off).
2) Have all 6 people sign a "distribution agreement." In the agreement it would specify what the assets are and that everything is to be divided equally.
Depending if this is in court or not could change some things but this is the basics.
1 user found this answer helpful
A:
I am sure that what Mr. Palley means to say is for you to HIRE AN ATTORNEY to draft these documents for you, so they are done properly. The worst thing that could happen is for you to try to do it yourself and to mess it up, and confuse the title to the property, so that you or your heirs have to spend ten times the amount on attorney's fees to get a court to undo what could have been done properly in the first place.
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