More Litigation out of James Brown’s Estate: South Carolina Freezes Estate. How Can You Avoid Expensive Estate Litigation? Three things to take away from the James Brown Estate debacle.

I have written several posts about the James Brown Estate but today jamesbrown2.jpg something new came out, according to local authorities the Supreme Court has frozen the estate. The highest Court in South Carolina on February 19, 2015 issued an order directing the Aiken County Clerk of Court to provide the SC Supreme Court with all orders issued in any action related to James Brown. Jay Bender who is an attorney for the South Carolina Press Association said that the latest news points to the SC Court’s efforts to take a step back and re-evaluate the case. The Supreme Court wants to figure out what is going on, because these cases get complicated. There are several take aways here for the Florida Palm Beach Probate Litigator.

• This is not a common order according to at least one South Carolina Attorney who states he has never seen a order released like this.
• These are also uncommon in Florida, Courts are overworked and over burdened and often want to dispose of these issues quickly.

Here is a quick catch up on the facts as they have developed:

• Brown died on Christmas day back in 2006. That is right almost ten years ago.
• Brown left a sizeable amount of his estate to a charity to help Georgia children. This charity has since been grounded because of these legal issues.
• Furthermore, Circuit Judge Eugene Griffith Jr. told the Attorney General’s office on Jan. 20 that it had 10 days to produce several documents, including an appraisal of Brown’s assets and the alleged diary of Hynie – the latter causing officials to question whether Hynie was truly married to Brown.

Here is what I take away from this:

1. Money is sometimes thicker than family, the Brown family has chosen to fight rather than take their inheritance.
2. There is little to no evidence the will was actually invalid this seems to be a case of familial greed.
3. Charity is good but your estate plan has to be able to hold up in Court.

There are also a few ways to avoid these types of issues:

If you are considering an inter-vivos trust this could be a game changer, after all then the funds would have never gone into probate.
Outside of Florida there is no contest clauses which would prohibit a beneficiary under a will from challenging.