There are plenty of LESSONS FROM GENE HACKMAN'S ESTATE PLANNING.
https://youtu.be/HZI4oiP0ZtM
It's a cautionary tale about managing changing circumstances. Proper implementation and monitoring has to be in place. Periodic reviews of the documents, asset titling, and staffing of the fiduciary roles are a must. Finally, understanding the family dynamics and desire for confidentiality are vital in putting the estate plan in place. The disposition of $80 million was at stake here.
LAWRENCE D MANDELKER, Partner at the NEW YORK OFFICE OF VENABLE, and I discussed the fact pattern, what could have been avoided, and points to take away in one's own affairs.
https://open.spotify.com/episode/1ndlYCQRiAokJ4FyATL9Te
Transcription
Frazer Rice (00:02)Welcome aboard, Larry. VENABLE ARTICLE ON GENE HACKMAN'S ESTATE
Lawrence D. Mandelker (00:04)Thanks for having me, Frazer.
Frazer Rice (00:05)This is, I wouldn't say it's fun talking about someone's estate, but this one's particularly interesting. We all remember Gene Hackman from Hoosiers and Superman and Mississippi Burning and all sorts of great movies. Unfortunately, his end was sad and as it turns out, Gene Hackman's Estate was complicated and public. From a planning perspective, we can learn a lot. ⁓ Take us through a little bit about where where Gene's estate kind of went from and ended up as far as a fact pattern.
Fact Pattern in Gene Hackman's Estate Planning
Lawrence D. Mandelker (00:37)Sure. So, you know, the news sort of surprised all of us when we heard that he had died. And then over the next couple of days and weeks and even months, more more detail came out. And as you said, it was pretty disturbing. But it seems as though Gene Hackman was a very successful ⁓ actor and he engaged in estate planning.
Gene worked with attorneys, which is always a good thing to do it to work with people who are experts in the field And he had a you know a normal estate plan. He lived with his wife It seems like he had a little bit of a fractured family. It was not his first marriage. We learned after he signed his estate planning documents sort of things over the next 20 years sort of changed for him he He had some health issues.
He was suffering from advanced dementia at the time he died and as we know his wife died from a virus apparently a week before. Then as the details came out we learned that he had the advanced dementia. There was a fractured family the the wife and his kids did not get along so well. It's unclear what the situation was with how much contact he did have with his children. But he had a will, he had signed it 20 years before he died. The facts changed. It looks like he hadn't reviewed it in a while. His attorney died so we have a sad situation here.
Frazer Rice (02:12)Many lessons to get from that. Let's start with the first one. He definitely had ⁓ sort of dementia situations, cognitive dysfunction that eroded over the course of time. Maybe take us through a little bit about the scope of that issue. mean, it affects lots of people and a growing number every year and some things that should be in place because of that.
Lawrence D. Mandelker (02:38)Yeah, you know, we all think we've got a lot of time and for someone who gets a diagnosis of dementia
It's sort of a warning sign as soon as that happens that, you know, we never know when our time is going to come, but the dementia is sort of the warning. You know, maybe you're entering the second half of the game or the fourth quarter of the game. So maybe you should start getting your affairs in order while you still can. So it's a good ⁓ impetus to do that. You know, when we're looking at estate planning, there's, you you can do different types of estate planning, but really think about it as, you know, you can do it for yourself.
You can do it- your loved ones and then you know for depending on the nature of your assets you can do it for tax purposes but you know getting ...