Comments on: Chapter 20 – Father and Son: Page 37

By: JesBelle

JesBelle — Mon, 07 Jul 2014 02:49:00 +0000

That makes sense. My grandparents left some money to my mother, but she predeceased my grandfather. The money that would have gone to her will be split between my siblings and myself, with no money going to my father. It seems sort of cold, but it’s the estate planner’s job to be dispassionate about such things and no one can say what will be happening 20 years down the road.

By: themice

themice — Sun, 06 Jul 2014 21:39:00 +0000

This, with my limited knowledge of wills and estate planning, see it. Lily’s family is old money and established trusts for Lily and their grandson. Lily’s death made her trust Elan’s by their choice, and funds could be drawn on it for the care of Elan until 21 when he was old enough to handle that sum. Elan’s trust, which he doesn’t know about the particulars, goes to him at an older age. Arthur does not come from money, but was smart and able to establish a small fortune with some smarts (and luck) moves in the 80s, thus he was “new money” for a while but almost like lottery winners he thought his “genius” would always work. He felt entitled to Lily’s trust upon her death.

By: JesBelle

JesBelle — Sat, 05 Jul 2014 20:55:00 +0000

My read of it was that Lily had the money in trust (maybe from her parents?) and when she died, the remainder went to Elan on his 21st birthday. Perhaps Lily’s parents weren’t quite as smitten with one A. Singer as their daughter was and wanted to make sure that at least some portion of their daughter’s money would go to their grandchild. It seems like the sort of thing that protective parents would do. After all, fortunes can come and go and they were obviously dealing with a very large sum. If Lily set up the trust, it would make sense to name Arthur as the excecutor, but if the grandparents did, they might choose another party that they trusted.

By: bronakopdin

bronakopdin — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 14:52:00 +0000

I love uncle Felipe!

Not only does he no press the issue he simply trusts Elan without asking any questions what he needs the room for!

I want a relative like that!

By: Donald Burch

Donald Burch — Wed, 25 Jun 2014 08:37:00 +0000

I reserved my thoughts about Felipe’s revelation about Arthur to a separate comment. Of course, like anyone Felipe can only share his opinion/observation about Arthur and Lily’s relationship but it makes sense having looked back over the story. Arthur might have resented how Lily doted on their son more than she loved him and her leaving her money to Elan might have stabbed Arthur like a knife to the heart.

I did not think about it before but it is my experience that parents who can do so often set up trust funds for their children. Typically, on the death of one spouse the survivor inherits most property while children inherit through through their trust. Lily specifically willed her estate to Elan, not Arthur. That is most unusual.

If Arthur adored Lily as Felipe indicated why did she feel compelled to cut her husband out of her will? Did she in fact cut him out or did Arthur burn through his inheritance and later turned a greedy eye to his son’s? There is a very deep and troubling story here. I would like to know more about what happened.