18 Strangest Wills Written That These Lawyers Decide To Share

Your last will and testament is one of those things you probably don’t want to think about while having a walk in the park. It's also one of those things you’ll be so glad you did.
Apparently, making it loud and clear what happens to your property when you die, whom your belongings go to and who’s gonna be in charge of making things happen after you’re no longer here makes everything so much easier for your closest ones. And although we’d much rather never think about death altogether, reality makes us do so.
So in order to see just how complex, interesting, and sometimes pretty weird last wills can be, we take a look at this Ask Reddit thread. “Lawyers who put together wills, what is the craziest/oddest thing someone wanted to put in theirs?” someone asked and received more than 8k comments. Below we selected the most entertaining stories, so pull your seat a little closer!

Source: https://www.jimshoenbill.com/

#1

Not a Lawyer, but an aging woman my family knew left her house(large, and in a very affluent neighborhood) and estate to family friends for so long as her cats were alive and taken care of in said house. After they died, the house was to be sold and the remaining estate donated.
The weird thing is, it's been like 20 years and the cats are still alive.
Also, they've changed color.

#2

Not a lawyer but my mom put in her will that if she dies under suspicious circumstances that my sister and I won’t be left anything. She watches a lot of true crime.

#3

Not a lawyer, but I work at a law firm. One client left $100,000.00 to his two cats so they could "maintain their current lifestyle".

#4

I (early 20s) was forced to write a will due to the health insurance i get at work, and, amongst sensible stuff, the in-house lawyer said it was totally okay for this clause to be added:

"My funeral wishes are that i be buried in a coffin which has been springloaded, such that opening the coffin would cause alarm to future archeologists"
Then a bunch of stuff about if this is to costly i'd be cremated and have my ashes scattered in a specific place.

#5

Saw this answer from a similar question some time ago. When a dad died he set up financial installments so long as his daughter remains under a certain weight. Dude was controlling her diet from the grave.

#6

A furby collection from models collected in the late 90’s. They were convinced they would retain future value.
This was 2011.

#7

I work in probate. The oddest thing I’ve seen in a will is to euthanize their beloved horse, have it cremated and it’s ashes scattered with the decedent. Lucky for her horse, she named a horse that was already dead so the one she got afterwards lived to see another farm.

#8

Just last week I handled a matter where the parents left millions in artwork to various people, wads of cash to various charities, and only left their kids the family cats. Turns out they did it because the kids got them the cats to comfort the parents in their old age and the parents f*****g hated the cats but the kids wouldn’t let them get rid of the cats.

#9

My sister’s mother in-law is leaving her house to her three sons. If one wants to sell out his third of the house, he has to sell it to the other two brothers for $1.

#10

Lots of people sending their friends and family on weird errands to spread their ashes (leaving money for people to take trips and spread their ashes around the world).

Pet trusts are a fun one: leaving a whole whack of money in a trust to be used for the care of the pet during their life.
However, my favourite ever (that I obviously didn’t draft) was a lawyer who left the bulk of his estate (millions in today’s dollars) to whatever Toronto-area woman had the most children at a specific date some years in the future. I recall the winner had 10.

#11

I had the first son so my dad decided to leave me more. Except he did the math wrong and it came out to 105%. He had dementia.

#12

When my grandfather passed his will asked that I clean out his shed, and I alone.
I found marijuana seeds, old reel style film pornography, which was hilarious and a bunch of other unsavory paraphernalia. 50's flick knives too.

#13

I am a qualified solicitor, my favourite two are:
1. A lady wanted to create a trust fund of £100,000, for her pet fish. When I asked if it was a special kind of fish, she confirmed it was just a normal goldfish but she wanted it to be fed fresh avocado every day and be looked after by a local dog walker after she died. She was absolutely serious.
2. Another lady confessed she had a secret daughter, and she wanted to leave the daughter some money and photographs without the rest of her family finding out. Even her husband does not know. That will be a fun conversation when she passes away.

#14

Lady wanted her small dog to be buried with her. If the dog happened to be alive when the lady passed, she wanted the dog put down and then join her.

#15

#16

In my Mums will, which I have seen, she has left me the kitchen table and chairs.
She lives on a South Manchester council estate.
My brother gets the sideboard.

#17

#18

i got some rock my grandpa really liked.

#19

Had a very attractive woman with terminal cancer try to get herself stuffed by a taxidermist and given to some rich guy that had been basically a sugar daddy to her for a few months. She said "He would give me a million dollar a week allowance as long as it was in an official will that he could see." I sent her to a lawyer who I knew that would do about anything for a buck because I didn't want to end up in the news when she died. That was 2 years ago, no clue what happened to her.

#20

Might be late to the party and not a lawyer, but my great-grandad had a clause in his will that stated something along the lines of, “if any of the beneficiaries decide to dispute the contents of the decedent’s estate, their share becomes $1 and nothing else.” Seemed like a pretty good way to maintain harmony among his survivors.