Jerry Lewis excludes his six sons from his will

[no_hypocrisy]

5. Same result but different approach

My father disinherited me and my sister and brother, but left $35,000 to the neighbor across the street.

Instead of explicitly disinheriting us like Jerry Lewis, Dad was cagier. My parents each owned 50% of two houses with property. When Mom died, my sister and I inherited her 50% and we expected to get the other 50% when Dad passed. Instead, Dad put in his Will that his 50% of the houses should be made into a life estate. That means my sister and I didn't get full rights to the property. We can use and enjoy 100% of the property and we must pay taxes and maintain the property, if we sell the property, we only keep 50% of the proceeds. The other 50% of the proceeds go to four charities. Or if we die, our estate doesn't get the 100%; the charities get the same 50% of the properties.

You may assume that Dad was generous to a fault regarding his charitable intentions. He wasn't. The charities together will get over one million dollars (divided by four). My sister offered to pay Dad to buy her 50% before he died, but he refused to sell it.

Our brother was willed a trust but without sufficient assets in the estate, there was no corpus for a trust.

At least Jerry Lewis wasn't pretending to have them in his estate. His kids, my siblings, and I still get nothing essentially from our fathers' estates but he didn't give the illusion of inheritance.