Gene Hackman. Betsy Arakawa Hackman. It’s all over the news. They lived privately and they died privately. And now things are very, very public. Why?
Simply put: they didn’t keep their estate plans up to date.
Don’t Let Your Estate Plan Get Stale
If I’ve said it before, I’ve said it a gazillion times. Estate plans are not one and done. You don’t check it off the task list, never to be revisited. Estate plans are living, breathing things. As you travel through life, any number of things can change that can mean your plan also needs to change.
If this is sounding familiar, it’s because we discussed just a few of the things that can impact your estate plan last month.
A Cautionary Tale: The Hackman Estate
In this case, the problems with Gene Hackman’s estate stem from two key missteps: not updating the plan over time and not including a back-up plan. Talking regularly with their estate attorney would have absolutely prevented the first issue and likely caught the second as well.
Piecing together what’s been published by sources that have allegedly read the couple’s estate planning documents, it sounds as though the Hackmans only ever expected Gene, some 30 years older than Betsy, to die first. His estate plan leaves everything to Betsy with no provision for what should happen if she died first.
As is being revealed through investigation and medical examiner evidence, Betsy passed away days before Gene. Her estate plan leaves everything to charity. No issues there. That wish will be carried out.
But what of Gene’s estate?
His estate plan makes no mention of his three adult children: Christopher, 65, Elizabeth, 62, and Leslie, 58, whom he had with first wife Faye Maltese. By all accounts Gene had a strained relationship with his children. Early in his career, he was separated from them for months at a time. By his own admission, “the temptations in that … were too much for the poor boy in me. I wasn’t able to handle that.”
But Gene left no indication of his intention in the unlikely event that Betsy passed first. An unlikely event, yes, and yet the exact event that played out. Did he intend to disinherit his children? Did he just think Betsy would always die first?
We’ll never know.
We do know, though, that as his heirs at law, his children are likely to inherit his entire $80 million estate, regardless of their father’s intention.
Estate plans are written to share the intention of the testator, including:
Who should inherit
When they should inherit
Under what circumstances they should inherit
Who should carry out those wishes
This is why an estate planning attorney must ask you ‘what if…?’ over and over again. And if your inclination is ‘Oh, but that will never happen’, keep the Hackmans in mind. I’m sure they never thought in a million years that Betsy would die first. And yet, here we are.
A Maintenance Plan for Peace of Mind
If you’re a client of Ingle Law, keep your eyes open for an email about our Plan Preservation Program. This is the ‘maintenance plan’ for the estate plan. This puts the onus on US to reach out to YOU several times a year to touch base on the things we know can cause an estate plan to fail. If you don’t want to wait, just reply to this email when it goes out and we’ll send you more information ASAP.
If you’re not a client of Ingle Law yet, reach out and let’s discuss getting your plan put in place (or up to date) and then maintained for life. You don’t want your family wading through a legal mess while they’re trying to grieve their loss.
👉 Click here to request your Discovery Session and take the first step toward protecting what matters most.
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