(03) 9020 2905It’s a story of an auction, a midnight drug deal gone wrong and the proceeds of crime being equitably redistributed among the people.
Nah! I’ve got a better one. It’s about a mother who made a bold financial threat to her children, and then wrote herself out of her own fortune.
In a desperate attempt to stop her two boys from going increasingly wayward, in a town where finding trouble actually took some effort, this young mother was desperate to discourage the “wrong” behaviour.
“If either of you two boys ever get a tattoo, or ride motorbikes, you will be written out of the will. No inheritance! You hear me?” she declared.
A decade passed. Memories faded.
The younger son got a tattoo. And maybe a second. Dad bought a Harley Davidson and joined a geriatrics motorcycle club. Younger son also got a motorbike. Not wanting to be left out, mum bought a motorbike and the parents started tour-biking around the country.
Elder son watched. No tattoos for him. No motorbikes, not even on holidays to Bali.
Quandary for elder son. All other family members had broken the rules. Is the whole inheritance technically now his? Given the flagrant rule breaking by his parents, can he, should he, lay claim to his inheritance prior to death?
He could magnanimously let the parents stay there with “life interest” – the legal term for “enjoy it until you die”?
Sounds fair, does it not?
If so, mother dearest, I think it’s time for you to sign over everything to me. Now!
Bruce Brammall is the author of Debt Man Walking (www.debtman.com.au) and principal adviser with Castellan Financial Consulting.