What Can We Learn From Howard Hughes?

I honestly can’t believe I haven’t written about him yet….Howard Hughes died in 1976 with a $2.5B (that’s a B!) estate and without a spouse nor children.   Thirty-four years of litigation and forensic scrutiny ensued while over 40 forged last wills came forward claiming to be Hughes’ last will. Most famously was a handwritten document known as the “Mormon Will.”

Mysteriously left on a desk at the headquarters of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (the Mormon Church) in Salt Lake City, Utah shortly after Hughes’ death, the last will declared a Utah gas station owner Melvin Dummar as a beneficiary, leaving him a $156 million cut of Hughes’ estate.

Mr. Dummar claimed that in December 1967, while driving in the Nevada desert, he picked up a disheveled, injured older man who had been flagging down cars. Dummar drove the gentleman to Las Vegas and dropped him off at the Sands Hotel.  Dummar claimed the man identified himself as Howard Hughes, but Dummar didn’t believe him until he was told about the last will found on the desk of an LDS Church secretary.  A 1978 jury unanimously declared this document to be an elaborate hoax and forgery. 

In fact, all of the dubious handwritten notes, forged typewritten pages, and even bogus audio tapes brought by the 400 claimants and 600 potential heirs were held to be invalid and the courts found Huges to have died intestate (without a last will).

After three decades of litigation, his estate was eventually divided between his 22 surviving cousins.

So, what can we learn from this eccentric billionaire’s nightmare of an estate?

We can discuss a few tips to not be annoying to your friends and families:

1. Alternate Face ID phone to unlock. It turns out that just giving someone access to your phone doesn’t give them access to your passwords(!). If you really want someone to be able to get to your accounts, having them as your alternate face ID to unlock the phone is the way to achieve that. 
2. Create a shared i-cloud folder with your loved ones. You can share executed estate planning documents and other important information. 
3. Tell your people where you keep your very important papers. These docs. are not meant to be hidden like a pirate treasure, they should be in a designated spot where they can be found should they be needed.
4. Fund your trusts. A trust with nothing in it is pointless, make sure you help the universe out and actually link your assets to the trust otherwise the trust is pointless.

So, there you have it. We learn that a good estate plan can prevent annoying the humans. We also learn that I’ll never run out of stories of celebrities and their estate planning mistakes!