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Home » Inheritance Law » Aretha Franklin, 80 Mil­lion Dol­lars, and the Trou­ble With Hand­writ­ten Wills

Aretha Franklin, 80 Mil­lion Dol­lars, and the Trou­ble With Hand­writ­ten Wills

October 9, 2019 by Liza Hanks

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When Aretha Franklin died in August of 2018, her fam­ily thought she did­n’t leave a will. The legal term for this is dying “intes­tate,” and the law has a built-​in set of rules to deter­mine who gets that person’s prop­erty. Under Michi­gan’s intes­tacy laws, Aretha’s four sons would equally share her $80 mil­lion estate—so a lot is at stake.

The court appointed one of Aretha’s nieces to serve as the estate’s per­sonal rep­re­sen­ta­tive. She began to do her job—identifying Aretha’s prop­erty, pay­ing her debts and taxes, and pro­tect­ing what she’d left behind.

About a year later, though, the niece dis­cov­ered the keys to a locked cab­i­net, opened it, and found two hand­writ­ten wills—one dated June 21, 2010 and another dated Octo­ber 20, 2010. Then, in a spi­ral note­book left under a couch cush­ion, she found a third hand­writ­ten will dated March 31, 2014. (The Detroit Free Press web­site offers links that let you view the doc­u­ments them­selves.)

Since then, only trou­ble has ensued. Two of Aretha’s sons argue that the court should accept the 2014 will, which names one of them as execu­tor. Another son is argu­ing that all three wills should be rec­og­nized. And the fourth is ask­ing the court to admit none of them at all. The judge has asked the fam­ily to find a medi­a­tor to attempt some res­o­lu­tion of their dis­pute. And the estate has hired a hand­writ­ing expert to deter­mine whether or not Franklin actu­ally wrote the wills.

Hand­writ­ten Wills: Are They Legal?

The drama of Aretha’s story is com­pelling, but the details don’t mat­ter as much as the fact that leav­ing mul­ti­ple hand­writ­ten wills around your home is a bad estate plan­ning strat­egy.

Hand­writ­ten wills signed with­out other peo­ple to wit­ness your sig­na­ture are tech­ni­cally called “holo­graphic wills.” They can be valid, but it depends where you live. The states that cur­rently allow them are:

Alaska, Ari­zona, Arkansas, Cal­i­for­nia, Col­orado, Hawaii, Idaho, Ken­tucky,  Maine, Michi­gan, Mis­sis­sippi, Mon­tana, Nebraska, Nevada, New Jer­sey, North Car­olina, North Dakota, Okla­homa, Penn­syl­va­nia, South Dakota, Ten­nessee, Texas, Utah, Vir­ginia, West Vir­ginia, Wyoming

States dif­fer on what a holo­graphic will must include to be valid. At a min­i­mum you need to be able to prove that the per­son intended it be a will, that it was their hand­writ­ing, and that the per­son had enough men­tal capac­ity to draft it.

As the story of Aretha Franklin’s wills illus­trates, hand­writ­ten wills can cre­ate a load of legal and prac­ti­cal headaches. It’s always best to make a for­mal will—whether or not you use a lawyer or do it your­self—and sign it in front of two adult wit­nesses who don’t stand to inherit any­thing from you. Those basics will meet the law of every state.

More Infor­ma­tion

Liza Han­ks’s most recent book is Every Cal­i­for­ni­an’s Guide to Estate Plan­ning. To con­nect with her directly visit www​.liza​hanks​.com.

To get more answers to com­mon ques­tions about inher­i­tance law and intes­tacy, see Legal Con­sumer’s inher­i­tance law learn­ing cen­ter.

Filed Under: Inheritance Law Tagged With: handwritten wills, holographic wills, intestacy

About Liza Hanks

Liza Hanks is a partner at GCA Law Partners LLP in Mountain View, California, where she practices estate planning, trust administration, and probate law. She’s the author of Every Californian’s Guide to Estate Planning: Wills, Trusts & Everything Else and The Trustee’s Legal Companion (with Attorney Carol Zolla) and she writes about estate planning and inheritance law here at Legal Consumer. Liza is a graduate of Stanford Law School, a former magazine editor, and the mother of two children (neither of whom show any desire to become attorneys).

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