Keep ill out of will

By Tanya Bricking
Advertiser Staff Writer

Growing up in a large family, Kathy Hallock learned early on about sharing.

Honolulu lawyers dealing with contested wills say they have seen squabbling first-hand and has written brochures that suggest simple measures to avoid such problems. Advertiser photo illustration

When it came time to divide the sentimental items left in their father's estate, she and her five brothers gathered in a bedroom — with no husbands or wives around — and drew numbers to see who would receive the everyday symbols of their father's life, like his tie tacks and watchband.

One of the cherished items Hallock picked in the lottery had nothing to do with monetary value. It was one of her late father's belt buckles.

Hallock liked it and remembered her father wearing it. But she never was the kind of person to get caught up on "things." When she drew one of her brother's names for the family Christmas gift exchange a year later, she bought him a belt and put the buckle on it.

Maybe the nature of Hallock's job as a hospice social worker makes dealing with family matters come a little more naturally. For the rest of us, the details of who gets the heirlooms after someone dies can cause family rifts to surface and long-standing resentments to separate siblings.

At a time when parents are leaving more than ever to their baby-boomer children, only 17 percent of Americans 50 and older have a will, a durable power of attorney and a living trust, according to the AARP (formerly the American Association of Retired Persons).

Estate planners say the biggest feuds often are over the little things, things like who gets the belt buckle.

"Usually, it's the sentimental factor that makes the argument greater," said Judy Yuriko Lee, an estate planning lawyer and partner with Goodsill Anderson Quinn & Stifel.

For Hallock, 55, of St. Louis Heights, working it out was easier because everyone in the family agreed that "the best things in life are not things."

Will power

Bybee, a Honolulu lawyer who deals with contested wills, has seen squabbling first-hand and has written brochures that suggest simple measures to avoid such problems.

People in Hawai'i living far from family members often have estrangements, remarriages, second families and broken relationships that can contribute to the tension of an already grief-filled time when someone dies, he said. The value of the items left to divide doesn't matter when greed, jealousy and other emotions get in the way.

"A lot of discord in the family manifests itself," Bybee said.

One solution, he suggests, is to find a technique for splitting personal possessions. For example, if there are five siblings, make five piles of items. The siblings who sort the piles choose last, making the division more even.

Drawing cards, picking straws, rolling dice, even selling items siblings can't decide how to split, are all better solutions than going to court to resolve a dispute, said David Larsen, a probate lawyer who used to write a column for the Advertiser about estate planning.

Larsen has just published his third book about probate and inheritance, "Death and Taxes" (University of Hawai'i Press).

When things become problematic, some lawyers refer clients to estate administrators to provide an objective third party to address a dispute.

"Equal is in the eye of the beholder," said Steve Harris, a principal at Estate Administrative Services in Honolulu. "Our message is pre-plan with the tangible property. Identify who should get what."

More 'reality' fodder

Don Hallock treasures the view camera and binoculars left to him by his dad. Wife Kathy and her siblings used a lottery to divide up their father's stuff. Both spouses say family is more important than things. Gregory Yamamoto • The Honolulu Advertiser

ABC is working on "The Will" (from producer Mike Fleiss, the man behind the network's hit "The Bachelor"). On the show, the wealthy and still-living benefactor will offer his or her estate to family members. But the potential heirs have to compete for the goods and vote out other relatives.

Considering some of Hawai'i's high-profile estate stories, that kind of reality TV may not be so far-fetched.

Take the Doris Duke dispute. The reclusive tobacco heiress died in 1993 at age 80 at Shangri-La, the famous Duke mansion on Black Point, with few relatives or friends to whom to leave her $1.2 billion estate. She ended up leaving much of it to her flamboyant Irish butler, Bernard Lafferty, who died three years later. Her adopted daughter, Chandi Heffner, got only a rebuke in the will and went to court before settling for $65 million.

The saga became a TV two-night special in 1999, CBS' "Too Rich: The Secret Life of Doris Duke." Now, superstars Julia Roberts and Nicole Kidman are battling for the leading role as Duke, the Hollywood socialite who is finally getting respect after her death, in large part because of the legacy left to nonprofits through the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation.

Hawai'i also has connections to the dispute over the estate of artist Georgia O'Keeffe. The will she signed in 1979 at age 91, and additions to her will five years later, gave her assistant, part-time Hawai'i resident Juan Hamilton, 70 percent of her $70 million estate. The will was contested by members of her family, including niece June Sebring, who lives in Hawai'i. The Georgia O'Keeffe Foundation, born of a bitter lawsuit between Hamilton and the relatives, has overseen the distribution of her works.

Those cases are the extreme, though, said Larsen, who has a good story about a multimillion-dollar estate being divided among three children.

"They worked it out until they got to the lawn furniture," he said. "It was from Sears & Roebuck, worth about $200. The kids were certain they wanted to fight. They each hired separate lawyers."

When they got to court, "the judge said 'sell it,' " Larsen said. "The kids said no. She said, 'Figure it out,' rapped her gavel and said, 'Next case.' "

Talk it out

The biggest problem in estate planning is a lack of communication, estate planners say.

People don't want to think about their mortality or talk about what should happen after they are gone, and many people keep their plans secret.

There's no one plan that works for sure, said Rowen Young, a probate lawyer who has a weekly radio show about living trusts and probate on KHVH 830 AM.

"One of the true things you leave to your children is wisdom," he said. "The smart people will give everything away before they die to avoid lots of fights."

That's what Kathy Hallock's 79-year-old mother is doing.

Hallock already has her mom's stainless steel bowl in the kitchen and treasures the thimble and sewing scissors passed down from her grandmother and her mother.

Hallock's husband, Don, a family therapist, has a 4-by-5-inch view camera on a wooden tripod, passed down from his late father, a former park ranger and friend of famed photographer Ansel Adams.

Don also has his dad's 1920s-era binoculars inscribed with his dad's fraternity letters.

But when his dad died, Don didn't want more from his father's second family. He had all of the memories he needed.

The greatest legacy of Kathy and Don's fathers may be that their families have remained close in their absence.

"When families want to fight more than they want to cooperate, they will fight," Kathy Hallock said. "If they want to cooperate more than they want to fight, they will cooperate."

Tanya Bricking writes about relationships. Reach her at tbricking@honoluluadvertiser.com or 525-8026.