Gary Coleman Estate Mess

As a Michigan estate planning lawyer, I help clients prepare their estates for a smooth process upon their passing.  This pales in comparison to the Gary Coleman estate, where there were tons of issues.

Gary Coleman’s estate turned out to be quite a mess. Gary Coleman had a will that hadn’t been updated that left everything to an ex-girlfriend, a health care directive that had not been updated leaving control of the decision on whether he lived or died to an ex-wife who he was in a bitter fight with, and enough other loose ends to keep attorneys at work for years.

However, Gary Coleman did have some documents in place, which is better than many people according to a Martindale-Hubbell legal review in 2007, that stated that 55% of Americans do not even have a will, let alone a trust based estate plan that would avoid probate.

You can read more in the www.buffalonews.com.