The recent news has included some examples of estate plans that caused a lot of grief.

One is the tale of Steve McNair, former NFL player.  Steve had bought his mother a ranch.  Then he died.  Problem was, the ranch had been titled in Steve's name, and he made no provisions for his mother in his estate plan (it's not clear he even had a will). So Steve's widow demanded Steve's mother pay rent.  When she couldn't pay the rent, she moved out.   Steve's mother took with her the appliances she had purchased for the ranch.  Now Steve's widow wants over $50,000 for the appliances.   I really doubt this is the legacy Steve would have wanted. 

Another story is the estate of Farah Fawcett, the late actress and wife of Ryan O'Neal.  Farah had left all her artwork to her alma mater, the University of Texas.  But the reality show starring Ryan and his daughter Tatum had a shot of a painting of Farah by Andy Warhol hanging on the wall in Ryan's home.  The University wants it.  Ryan claims it was his.  To add to the cacophony, Ryan is suing Farrah's former personal assistant who claims Ryan stole the painting from Farrah.  Could this have been avoided?  I'm not sure.  Farrah did plan her estate.  If Ryan did steal the painting or is wrongfully withholding it from the University, it's hard to plan against such wrongdoing.  Yet, since Farrah apparently had an extensive art collection, and she was in a blended family with a man who had acquired significant wealth and material goods of his own,  I think I would have advised her to have it catalogued and appraised. 

I had a similar case.  A man came to me after his wife's death.  This was a second marriage for the wife, who also had a grown son.  The wife had received a house from her mother.  The wife's will provided that the house should go to the wife's son.  Sounds reasonable, right?  Problem was the wife and husband had decided to move into the mother's old house, and use the proceeds from the sale of each of their own homes to make expensive renovations to mother's old house.  Plenty of people heard wife say that she wanted husband to receive what was now "their" home, but she didn't change her will to reflect that.  It's a mess that could have been avoided with a regular estate planning checkup.