Succession Law

According to the rules of intestacy, a deceased person leaves an estate which is worth less than 250,000 Pounds, his spouse gets everything. In this case, Xena, being the valid nominee of the fund, died before she could transfer the right to ownership to anyone else. Therefore, Yulande is the potential recipient of Zane’s estate as, according to the law, she married to Zane is still valid. Xena had not prepared a will indicating that her son, Tyrone, would be the beneficially in case of her death. Wyoming cannot inherit the estate as her marriage to Zane was never legalized. Even though children of the deceased can, by default, inherit the value of the estate which is in excess of 250,000 Pounds, Violet could not have been eligible for inheriting Zane’s property as she had never been declared legally legitimate by a court of competent jurisdiction.

When an individual dies, the outstanding debts are settled out of his/her estate, i.e. the property and money that they leave behind. A second party’s responsibility to someone’s debt may only occur where that second party had a joint agreement or loan, a situation which makes the party automatically responsible for the deceased outstanding debts. When a person dies without a will, his estate is managed by an administrator. If the diseased had prepared a will, an executor is tasked with the responsibility of carrying out the terms of the will. In situations where the estate has to settle any outstanding debts, this settling is executed in a specified order before the remainder is awarded to person named in the will.

When the money is not enough to cater for the outstanding debts, the preferred heir losses an opportunity to inherit as the debt has to be paid until the estate is depleted. In this case, Happy Harry’s residuary estate is worth $33,000. The estate will have to settle the amounts owed to Bert’s Burial Service, the specified creditors, and Cash ‘n Carry credit Company in full. Upon settling the three debt categories, the residue amount is $8,000, an amount which is inadequate to settle the entire amount that the deceased owned Bigger ‘n better Bank. As such, the Bigger ‘n better Bank receives only $8,000, and this implies that the remaining $12,000 is unlikely to be paid. In an endeavor to settle his outstanding mortgage of $60,000, the sale of his house fetches just $40,000. As in the case of Bigger ‘n better Bank, the mortgager has forfeit the right to recover the balance of $20,000. Harry’s friend and neighbor, Tiny Tim does dot inherit anything from the deceased property as the estate is has insufficient resources to settle the outstanding debts.

Upon the death of an individual, the first task of the executor or administrator is to settle the deceased individual’s debts and taxes. Under the law, heirs are only entitled to inheritance after the outstanding debts have been settled in full. Since Harry held the property in sole name, and had left a will declaring Tim as his preferred heir, the portion of the property that is left after the settling of debt ought to be passed to Tim in accordance with the terms of the will. In this case, however, the outstanding debts are in excess of the value of the property. In this regard, Tim does not inherit anything from Harry’s property. Tim does not have any other legal entitlement as the estate is depleted before all the outstanding debts are covered.

Acting under duress has been found to be among the most controversial matters in law. Basically, duress refers to forcing someone to act against his will and conscious by threatening with violence or any other kind of harm. On many occasions, individuals find it difficult to prove that the documents in question were signed under duress. Moreover, the victims may not realize that they can contest the validity of the signed wills on the basis that they were contracted under duress. Nevertheless, the law defines that a contract of any sort ought to be equitable and fair so as to benefit both parties equally. In situations where a contract shows biasness towards one of the parties, the victim finds it easy to prove that he/she wouldn’t have signed it under normal circumstances.

In this case, Jack died before he can contest the validity of the will he signed in presence of his son, Shoohorn, and the doctor.  As such, while the son has the doctor as the witness, the other dependants have none. Nevertheless, supposing that the jury, upon consideration of the obvious biasness, rules that Shoohorn’s will was illegally obtained, the issue of joint tenancy will have to be settled before any portion of the estate is transferred to the heirs. Joint tenancy supersedes any inheritance. As such, upon the death of Jack, Delilah becomes the sole owner of the house. Nevertheless, Delilah does get the rest of Jack’s estate as she is explicitly stated as the main beneficiary in Jack’s final will. Dora cannot inherit Jack as the two did not have an opportunity to get married as Jack had wished. Furthermore, the condition for Dora’s inheritance was that she ought to have gotten married to Jack. Finally, Shoohorn’s legitimacy had not been sought, and following the nullification of the will which was obtained under duress, he is to get nothing from Jack’s estate.

Under the common law, the doctrine of satisfaction refers to the most appropriate way of administering wishes of a deceased person as stipulated in a will. Under this doctrine, any possession that the testator awards during his/her lifetime is presumptively regarded as being to the satisfaction of that beneficiary’s inheritance. Upon the death of an individual, the value of the gift is deducted from the portion of the estate that the benefiting party would have been entitled to receive. Nevertheless, this only holds when the gift happen to be handed over after the final will has been compiled. The doctrine of satisfaction would not work where it is revealed that the deceased did prepare another will after the gift had been awarded. Moreover, if the owner of the estate happens to divide his property in his life time, then the doctrine of satisfaction is nullified. For instance, if an individual prepares a will requiring his estate to be divided equally amongst two beneficiaries, this equality stands as long as none of the two beneficiaries acquires part of the estate before the execution of the will. Should one of them acquire part of the property, say, a house, the person share is reduced while executing the will of the deceased.

Tammy’s will cannot be executed to the letter. In fact, it can be contested as the witnesses signed the will on different occasions. Additionally, by witnessing the will, Nightingale disallowed herself from receiving from the will. This is especially so since she cannot act as a witness, an executor, as well as a beneficiary at the same time. Therefore, it would be impossible for Nightingale to receive the $10,000 under the will. For instance, in the case of Sue versus Robert, Robert was said to have wrongly witnessed a will by Sue’s father where the father indicated Robert as one of the beneficiaries. Upon contesting the will before the jury, Sue won, and the inheritance was concluded under the rules of intestacy. Tammy’s will cannot be validly executed because, as explained, a beneficiary ought to disallow herself from being a witness to the will in question.