Not a Lawyer, but an aging woman my family knew left her house(large, and in a very affluent neighborhood) and estate to family friends for so long as her cats were alive and taken care of in said house. After they died, the house was to be sold and the remaining estate donated.

The weird thing is, it's been like 20 years and the cats are still alive.

Also, they've changed color.

EndlessArgument , Dietmar Ludmann Report

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My great aunt who had no children put in her will that after a certain percent of her money was distributed evenly amongst her nieces and nephews, the remaining money would go to my dad provided he use it to throw a big family reunion party. Even after her death she brought the family together, it was a great party in her honor!

ricks35 , Kelsey Chance Report

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When my grandfather passed his will asked that I clean out his shed, and I alone.

I found marijuana seeds, old reel style film pornography, which was hilarious and a bunch of other unsavory paraphernalia. 50's flick knives too.

Navaro27 , Sebastian Huxley Report

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Not a lawyer, but I work at a law firm. One client left $100,000.00 to his two cats so they could "maintain their current lifestyle".

NerdSandwich , Ayelt van Veen Report

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Not a lawyer but my mom put in her will that if she dies under suspicious circumstances that my sister and I won’t be left anything. She watches a lot of true crime.

staying_incognito87 , Rob Allen Report

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Might be late to the party and not a lawyer, but my great-grandad had a clause in his will that stated something along the lines of, “if any of the beneficiaries decide to dispute the contents of the decedent’s estate, their share becomes $1 and nothing else.”

Seemed like a pretty good way to maintain harmony among his survivors.

nelson227 , Ryan Quintal Report

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Kusotare

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2 years ago

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That's pretty common.

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Adagar

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I'd never heard of it before today, I like it a lot!

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Snorkeldorf

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Late husband was one of 10 beneficiaries of his aunt's estate. No husbands, no children involved. We wanted to buy her house and it needed a lot of work. The info was that if the offer was reasonable and more than half the beneficiaries agreed, that was fine and it was a done deal. We worked on it for so long to figure out what we could offer/afford and what was reasonable. Offer was presented (we lived in an apartment). Two people (mother and daughter who were both ridiculously wealthy) objected. So, majority apparently did not matter. We were declined. One year later, attorney came back and said if we wanted the house at our offer price we could have it. To this day I have no idea what that was all about. I still live in the house 26 years later. Lost my husband a while back. From what I hear, the rich b***hes thought we were going to buy the house and flip it for a profit, which, honestly, any of them could have done. We made it our home. Some people are just mean, greedy little entities.

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Mad Dragon

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2 years ago

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My dad’s will says the same.

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Peacemaker21

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2 years ago (edited)

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"Hey bro you have some weeds on your lawn, you should pluck those out!" "Alright that's it only a dollar for you!"

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Daffodil

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Your username is hilarious in comparison to this comment

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Michael Largey

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Completely unenforceable in many situations. Heirs have rights under the law, and you cannot lose a right by asserting it. Suppose my uncle Louie leaves me and my four siblings a million bucks - to be divided evenly - and his will has that dispute clause in it. Could I as executor hand each of them $10 apiece instead of $200,000 and say "If you dispute it, you only get a dollar."? No, the Probate Court would not let that happen.

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madbakes

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My gramps did the same! It perfectly complemented his personality.

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Sterling Hill

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My ex had his mother (who is now dead) write her will stating that the other 2 grandchildren get their inheritance immediately (quite a lot too) but our son would not be eligible until I am dead and my mother is dead AND in the meantime if he (the ex) needs the money for any reason, he can use it as he likes. Mean don't even go there!!

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Michele Black

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My dad did that too! He knew I & his third wife and I had issues

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Darla Taylor

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My parents had that stated in their trust

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D Battle II

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Just grin and bear it people.

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Jake B

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Mine has that!

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Lawyer here.

Wrote in my own will that I wish to be cremated and my funeral shall take place 3 miles off shore. My ashes are to be placed in a small wooden boat. Members of my funeral party will then compete for a $10,000 prize from my estate by shooting flaming arrows at my remains. Crossbows are prohibited.

dawglaw09 , Ellena McGuinness Report

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I (early 20s) was forced to write a will due to the health insurance i get at work, and, amongst sensible stuff, the in-house lawyer said it was totally okay for this clause to be added:

"My funeral wishes are that i be buried in a coffin which has been springloaded, such that opening the coffin would cause alarm to future archeologists"

Then a bunch of stuff about if this is to costly i'd be cremated and have my ashes scattered in a specific place.

WanderCold , Eugene Peretz Report

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Just last week I handled a matter where the parents left millions in artwork to various people, wads of cash to various charities, and only left their kids the family cats. Turns out they did it because the kids got them the cats to comfort the parents in their old age and the parents f*****g hated the cats but the kids wouldn’t let them get rid of the cats.

Dr_BrOneil , Kelly Report

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My own grandmother specified which of the children and grandchildren should get which of the family recipes, and somehow felt the need to include commentary about why certain decisions were made. One recipe was this Prohibition era recipe for beer which I knew my uncle, also a home brewer, wanted, but she left it to me, with the comment that "I know you wanted it, Teddy, but she has the second-best penmanship of the girls and will make you a copy."

And then like eight pages later, in among the specific descriptions of her vast collection of romance novels (really,) was a line: "And [specific Jude Devereaux title] to Spidey, who will please subtract about half the hops before she copies the beer recipe for her Uncle Teddy so that any of us can drink it. Our Jon had his IPA last summer and just about died."

Uncle Jon just about burst into tears laughing and Uncle Teddy had long since left the room because he has no f***s whatsoever to give about romance novels. Uncle Jon, of course, was still in the room because there was also still Yuengling.

And no, I have no idea how she got this will done. My guess is she wrote it herself and the law students who come to her independent-living building signed off on it. It was...elaborate, that's for sure. Total value of the estate was well under eight thousand dollars, so it was mostly a funny last letter from Grandma.

spiderqueendemon , Sincerely Media Report

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I am a qualified solicitor, my favourite two are:

1. A lady wanted to create a trust fund of £100,000, for her pet fish. When I asked if it was a special kind of fish, she confirmed it was just a normal goldfish but she wanted it to be fed fresh avocado every day and be looked after by a local dog walker after she died. She was absolutely serious.

2. Another lady confessed she had a secret daughter, and she wanted to leave the daughter some money and photographs without the rest of her family finding out. Even her husband does not know. That will be a fun conversation when she passes away.

scarlett_pimpernel , imso gabriel Report

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Saw this answer from a similar question some time ago. When a dad died he set up financial installments so long as his daughter remains under a certain weight. Dude was controlling her diet from the grave.

anon , i yunmai Report

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My sister’s mother in-law is leaving her house to her three sons. If one wants to sell out his third of the house, he has to sell it to the other two brothers for $1.

Processtour , Scott Webb Report

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I work in probate. The oddest thing I’ve seen in a will is to euthanize their beloved horse, have it cremated and it’s ashes scattered with the decedent. Lucky for her horse, she named a horse that was already dead so the one she got afterwards lived to see another farm.

gabberrella24 , Silje Midtgård Report

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"No, ma'am, in order to bequeath something, you actually have to own it."

Michaeldim1 , Gabrielle Henderson Report

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When my grandfather passed it was discovered they they had been closet millionaires. No one in the family knew, but some good investments and frugal habits learned during the depression had turned out well for them. Of course they had 11 kids, so it got parceled down to about $100,000 each. Side note: Parents were encouraged to give their kids a slice and I just put a down payment on my first house -- thanks memere and pepere!

layinginbedrightnow , Alexander Mils Report

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Lots of people sending their friends and family on weird errands to spread their ashes (leaving money for people to take trips and spread their ashes around the world).

Pet trusts are a fun one: leaving a whole whack of money in a trust to be used for the care of the pet during their life.

However, my favourite ever (that I obviously didn’t draft) was a lawyer who left the bulk of his estate (millions in today’s dollars) to whatever Toronto-area woman had the most children at a specific date some years in the future. I recall the winner had 10.

PirateRobotNinjaofDe , Ben Wicks Report

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My grandfather and his law partner opened a small law firm "out of a broom closet", in a small Midwestern town in the 50s. Most of their cases were wills and contracts, small town stuff.

His very first client was an old farmer who wanted his will made, that left, among other things, a taxidermied dog to his only son.

By the mid 60s the firm was rapidly outgrowing their tiny office. A local lawyer died suddenly, leaving his office on the town square up for grabs. They took it sight unseen, my granddad and his partner got an awesome lease on huge law office suite on the town square, 30 yards from the courthouse.

The first client guy died the very day they got the keys to the new office. His son was the first client at the new office, he came in with the taxidermied dog while they were literally moving boxes. He dealt with his father's estate, and planned his own estate. And then he asked my grandad to store the taxidermied dog for a week while he fumigated. My grandfather agreed to put the dog into an unused office, and the guy went on his way.

When my granddad moved the dog into an upstairs office, he found a locked wall safe that hadn't been mentioned in the lease. The property owner had no idea it was even there, let alone the combination, and told my grandad he could have whatever he found.

My granddad called his best buddies, a couple of young lawyers, doctors, a realtor, and the local mortician, to come help him crack the safe. They tried to crack the safe, even using one of the doctors stethoscopes. Much to their chagrin, they failed miserably. Feeling defeated, they finally called the local locksmith, who managed to get it unlocked. They paid the locksmith before he looked inside, not knowing what sensitive material they might have found.

That was a good call. There was no money, but they found a mason jar full of hashish, and a couple of quarts of moonshine. It all magically disappeared, and by complete coincidence the parties they threw were the stuff of small town legends.

The guy came back for the dog a week later, and my grandfather told him that he thought the dog was a lucky charm. The guy redid his will a few years later, and left the taxidermied dog to the firm. It was still there when I was a little girl in the 80s, every time my granddad would bring me to the office I would pet it the whole time.

trouble_ann , Rob Pongsajapan Report

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My vindictive grandmother left my aunt $20 as a reminder of the $20 my aunt stole from her once.

anon , bark Report

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i got some rock my grandpa really liked.

MAX-definitely-DOG , Wolfgang Hasselmann Report

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A furby collection from models collected in the late 90’s. They were convinced they would retain future value.

This was 2011.

2rio2 Report

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My grandfather left me $1.00, he had dementia and confused my dad ripping him off with me. He left the rest of the family between $100,000 And a few million each.
They all said they felt horrible because they knew the details, but not horrible enough to give up any of their share.
The way I see it is it was never my money to begin with, so it's not a loss. I'm just glad my sister got a hundred thousand,she needed it more than any of the others.

Killallthemods , Viacheslav Bublyk Report

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My friends mother had in her will “that cat gets to live in my house alone until it expires” the cat lived there for a few years alone with a caregiver checking on it. Yes she was rich.

BrannyB , Michael Sum Report

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Had a friend who had a toxic relationship with his uncle. When his uncle passed he was surprised to find he was in the will. Turns out there was a handwritten IOU that read “I’m leaving you 15k BUT you have to come get it from me. I’ll see you in hell!” My friend laughed.

ThisSideOfVanishing , Ricardo Gomez Angel Report

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Here’s one from one of my dad’s law partners. He had a lady come in with an itemized list of books and wanted her will to contain all of the books and who will get what based on her choosing. So basically she decides who gets what specific book instead of letting her beneficiaries decide. The truly astonishing thing is how many books and how specific they get. According to dad’s law partner her list is at about 2,000 books to be divided among about 30 people. She is apparently very specific and comes back at least once a year to add all the new books she’s gotten.

littleredbird1991 , Tom Hermans Report

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My dad told me this about when my grandpa set up his will.
Basically, he first wanted to discuss the "who gets what" with his family first before putting it into writing. Smart, because that can nip a lot of issues later on in the butt.
So, my grandpa is sitting down with his two sons, discussing who gets what. And my mother and my aunt are there, and they're having a lot of ideas on how to split everything, whether item A is equal to monetary value B, and, most importantly, what their respective part of the family could do with what item/possession.
At some point, my grandpa had enough. He told the wives to leave the room because "hey, quit arguing about my stuff and money like that. I am not dead yet!".
But the most poignant thing he said was that he was dividing his earthly possession up between his sons. Not their wifes, not his grandchildren. He had two sons, and they would get the lions share.
There were provisions in there for individual items that he would ask people about. Do you want this? Would that thing make you happy? Could you use X? And he put aside certain monies to be divied up between the grandchildren, cousins, etc.
But he was very firm on who gets what and he communicated it very clearly. This is my stuff. I decide. And the only imput I value is by the two people I've known all their lives.
Well, he died and everyone was informed and knew what to expect.
My grandma is still alive. Years ago, around the same time that will was being drafted, she decided that most of her most valuable possessions should be similiarly taken care of.
She labeled all her jewelery. Put them in those little plastic bags that you freeze stuff in, because the bags my grandma uses for that have little labels on them that you can write on. Made the whole thing easy.
And then she eventually decided "why wait" and distributed them as gifts. She was getting up there, and she pretty much never had occassion to wear jewelery any more except for one or two beloved items.
I feel that there is an important lesson here: Deal with this kind of stuff early, communicate clearly, preferably when everyone involved is actually there, live. Everyone witnesses it and can't deny it later.
Not that there was any danger of that happening in my family, I think.
But I guess my grandparents knew: Inheritance, and money in general, can rip families apart. And if you want to curb that risk, no matter how insignificant it may seem, you gotta address the problem head on. You cannot hide from the problems caused by your death, just like can't hide from death itself.
Peace of mind, and a family not at risk of engaging in litigation against each other, is worth some time and effort.

TheWordShaker , Jack Finnigan Report

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I had the first son so my dad decided to leave me more. Except he did the math wrong and it came out to 105%. He had dementia.

anon , Alina Ryabchenko Report

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Not a lawyer but my grandpa put in his will a chocolate bar for everyone one of his grand kids. Well I have like 12 cousins and very difficult to track down where a couple of them went. All this estates and money he had in will was at a stand still for months because they couldn’t find my couple cousins. Had to show court we put in effort to hire someone to track them down etc. The lawyer that was helping execute the Will was blown away that this lawyer allowed this and why he wouldn’t highly suggest not to do it. But I’m not complaining cause I got a Toblerone out of the deal!

rv14guy , Towfiqu barbhuiya Report

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Had a very attractive woman with terminal cancer try to get herself stuffed by a taxidermist and given to some rich guy that had been basically a sugar daddy to her for a few months. She said "He would give me a million dollar a week allowance as long as it was in an official will that he could see." I sent her to a lawyer who I knew that would do about anything for a buck because I didn't want to end up in the news when she died. That was 2 years ago, no clue what happened to her.

WillLie4karma , patrick janicek Report

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When my great grandad died in his will he stated that his coin collection be split equally across his family. There was like 8-9 of us and 3 potato sacks full of coins. So we all gathered round a table and each took one coin each until nothing was left. Among the coins was an Iron Cross, which was quiet odd as the only person on that side of the family that went to war was his dad, and he served with the ANZAC’s in WW1.

X_TheRussianSquid_X , regularguy.eth Report

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I research land and often go through wills to determine ownership of property.

“To my wife I leave a length of rope long enough to hang herself.”

catdogyosh , Robert Zunikoff Report

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My father is heavily involved in my great aunt and uncle's lives since their health has begun to decline (both mid 90's with no children), and has seen their will.
They have a small fortune (in excess of £1,000,000), and have left it all to a local dog's home.
When he asked them about it, my great uncle's response was "nobody has helped me in life, so I won't be helping anybody either."

ExoticBiologist , Berkay Gumustekin Report

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I'm not a lawyer, but my grandfather saved his kidney stone so that he could leave it to my cousin. They never really got along.

anon , dfaulder Report

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In my Mums will, which I have seen, she has left me the kitchen table and chairs.

She lives on a South Manchester council estate.

My brother gets the sideboard.

Starman68 , Stephan Louis Report

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I’m the executor of my grandmother’s will. I also get the house and everything in it and a share of life insurance that’s split three ways between myself, sister, and mom. My mom has always said that all my dad , my grandmothers son-in-law, would like to have is some table. Well in the will there’s like a whole paragraph that states how my dad gets nothing, he doesn’t lay a finger on any thing in the house or any money. How my dad is basically worthless and deserves nothing and how he was a c**p dad and that she begrudgingly has my mom in the will. Thanks grandma I’ll appreciate the awkwardness.

Cocoah83 , Sven Mieke Report

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My grandfather has in his will to say “hi so-n-so.” Just so he can say that he mentioned that person in his will. He tells lots of people in the family that they are ‘in his will.’ It’s a joke that only he thinks is funny and he won’t be around for the punch line. I think it’s brilliant. He has about 10 people mentioned.

rcooplaw , Seb [ P34K ] Hamel Report

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Client wanted her ashes spread at the restaurant (on the beach) where she met her husband.

ronnstor , Mathew Schwartz Report

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Lawyer here. Probably the woman who wanted to gift the frozen semen of her dead dog.

literaphile , Marliese Streefland Report

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My wife has clear instructions to use some of my life insurance to buy a dilapidated house out in the countryside, tie my corpse to a chair, and throw a raging party in my honor inside.

Afterwards, when everyone is good and hammered, douse me in accelerant and burn the house to the ground with me still inside. Party ain't over till the house (and me) is no more.

mastachaos , Stephen Radford Report

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Lady wanted her small dog to be buried with her. If the dog happened to be alive when the lady passed, she wanted the dog put down and then join her.

mmm_tacos2159 , Nikolay Tchaouchev Report

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