Dooley Law Office has served farmers, ranchers, business owners and ordinary wage earners in the preparation of wills, trusts, and instruments to pass estates from one generation to another. Each situation requires careful study.
Among the problems which trouble or society are special needs of family members troubled by disease, disability, addiction, and divorce.
The client and the attorney must carefully study how to coordinate family resources with insurance, pensions, and governmental entitlements created for provision of medical care to disabled or aged persons.
Divorce and remarriage must be considered especially by families which have considerable wealth and are undertaking transfer of wealth from one generation to another.
For example; by contract for deed a Centennial Farm family arranged to sell buildings, land, and machinery to one of their three children. That favored child proved to be unstable in marital relations and married three times. That favored child passed through the first broken marriages without threatening the interests of his parents. During the third marriage that favored child was stricken by brain cancer.
His will had provided for his only child, a son profoundly injured in war, and his parents. The third wife proved to be more than a match for her cancer stricken husband. On the day he learned of his impending death he changed his well and disinherited his son and his parents.
This disastrous outcome could have been avoided by creating a mutual irrevocable set of wills.