If I was on the receiving end of something like this I’d just give the money back.
If this person had intentionally done this to my benefit over their children and it was current then sure I'd take the money.
But if it's a 50 years old out of date commitment to a life long gone and there are other genuinely more deserving in terms of being actually children then yeah I'd give it to them.
I'd just see it as a kind of a bank error. If the bank drops 1 million bucks into your account what would you do? I'd give it back. There have been cases reported of this in Australia where people do spend the money that the bank inadvertently puts in their account - I find that hard to understand. Actually I find it easy to understand but disappointing that people are so willing to do the crime just because its offered to them easy. Not suggested that in the case of this will it would be a crime, just suggesting that there's a right thing to do.
And I have done stuff like that. About 30 years ago I got paid about $7,000 for a software job by a client then got paid a second time. I just called em up and gave it back.
It happened to me once and it never occurred to me I could spend the money just because someone made a mistake. If I was stupid enough to spend it, I would have to give it back anyway, so what's the point?
I mean in the proposed alternative that wouldn't happen because you would tell them "hey I think this is a mistake, i think he just forgot to update the beneficiary". You only have the years of legal process where you decide that you should keep the money.
An statement by rich software developer does not extend to a significant part of a population.
(First food, then moral)
I don’t think anyone "deserve" to inherit. It’s just money you never worked to get and that you get because your parents had extra money.
So, morally, why would the brothers deserve more the money than the ex girlfriend ? Maybe they were still in good terms. Maybe she brought more joy in his life than his brothers. Maybe not but enough for her to get her share. Or just maybe he didn’t care enough about this and should be considered ok with the outcome.
You don’t deserve 1 more million on your bank account because you happened the brother of someone. Yes it may happen eventually but that’s just luck.
And I’m not taking side for anyone here. I can totally understand why the brothers would be upset and I would probably be if I were in their shoes. But at the same time, as someone who doesn’t count on his brother’s death to become rich, I’ll have a hard time being empathetic.
They should at least be upset about the carelessness of your brother rather than the ex girlfriend.
tl:dr; You are allowed to think that doing the right thing is not to give the money back because it was never meant to be theirs.
In this case, as you say, the guy didn't put much care into the issue, so we don't have to worry too much about if our decisions are what he would have chosen. What he chose was to barely consider the matter and mostly leave it up to others to figure out.
The fact he did remove the 2nd gf is interesting but probably has 2 arguments that cancel out. A, he removed the 2nd ex from insurance as soon as she was an ex, so in general he doesn't intent for exes to still be beneficiaries. B, he removed the 2nd and only didn't remove the 1st, so keeping the 1st on was intentional.
I do not think the 1st was intentional, but not taking care of this stuff in general was intentional, so he gets what he gets.
The brothers, well it's unfortunate that unfortunately they had a careless brother. If the court gives it to the ex, no great travesty has happened. The state is only deciding because the guy largely didn't bother deciding for himself.
But the lower the stakes, the easier it is to show integrity. Doing the right thing at no cost is easy.
Integrity isn’t just about doing the right thing when no-one is looking.
It’s doing right thing, even when no-one is looking, no matter what it costs you.
Sounds like “disclaiming” must take place within 9 months of death.
https://www.investopedia.com/articles/06/refuseinheritance.a...
To whom? The deceased person?
With a $1M account, it's a lot easier to say you would return it than to actually do it though. That's life changing money and it's hard to say no to life changing money.
"He died at 59, single and childless, with no will and no guidance on who should inherit his assets."
Parents, siblings, siblings children.
What would be the point of a beneficiary if it gets ignored even without a will?
The ex legitimately has a claim. The strength of the claim is still to be decided.
I can not just challenge something with you to make it not legitimate.
This is like not guilty until proven different.
That changes the strength of the very word beneficiary in the statement "beneficiary until proven otherwise". It's now only "maybe beneficiary until proven otherwise."
In other words, arguable, requiring to be determined.
You're not the thing until proven otherwise, the thing has to be proven in the first place now.
That is how it always has been.
The tax agency can come back 5 years later and ammend You tax filling.
The same here. You announce who the beneficiary is (the ex girlfriend), someone challenges that, but that does not change the beneficiary until the decision has been made.
I don't really see other ways it could work?
> You're not the thing until proven otherwise, the thing has to be proven in the first place now.
You misunderstand. You are the thing until proven otherwise.
Not if the process by which you become the the thing is swiss cheese.
In that case you are nothing but a potential. A potential thing is not a thing.