Celebrity Estates: Dolly Parton and Estate Planning Without Children

Speaker A: Welcome to the Celebrity Estates Wills of the Rich and Famous podcast. In this podcast, we break down high profile celebrity estate planning cases for advisors and their clients. Most celebrity estate catastrophes are based on the same issues that everyday people face just with the volume turned up. Our goal is to identify and extract the individual estate planning issues that lie at the heart of each story. We then discuss what advisors should expect and how to avoid common pitfalls. Hosted by WealthManagement.com senior editor David Lenok.

Speaker B: Hello everyone and welcome to the latest Episode of wealth management.com Celebrity estates Wills of the Rich and Famous for anyone new to the podcast. In each installment, myself and a guest take on a different celebrity estate and attempt to extract some key lessons that planners can apply to more traditional clients. The idea being that celebrity estate planning stories, although often ridiculous in their details, generally have at their cores very basic issues that could just as easily apply to non famous or fabulously wealthy clients. To learn more about estate planning and how you can better serve your clients, visit wealthmanagement.com trusts estates our monthly journal features tax law updates, wealth planning, retirement planning and much more written by thought leaders in the industry. That's wealthmanagement.com trusts estates. We're joined today by Nina Dow. Nina is a partner at Bowditch and Dewey and she focuses her practice on planning to minimize transfer taxes, including estate and tax planning that involves charitable giving, business succession planning, the representation of corporate and individual fiduciaries, and planning for individuals with special needs. Thanks so much for joining us, Nina.

Speaker C: Thank you, David. Thank you for that wonderful introduction. I was like, I do all that. Oh my goodness,

Speaker B: you're great.

Speaker C: I do. Even my mother will call me and say, what do you do all day?

Speaker B: I

Speaker C: encounter to read my bio,

Speaker B: play the recording back.

Speaker C: Wants all my attention all the time. Thank you for having me on the show.

Speaker B: It's a pleasure. So the subject today is a bit of a sad one for me personally. It's iconic country singer Dolly Parton. Dubbed the Queen of country, Dolly was one of the most successful performers in the history of the medium. She was also known for her cultural influence, particularly through Dollywood and the Dollywood foundation. With more than 100 records sold, Parton was among the best selling recording artists in history of any genre. Personally, just my wife and I honeymooned in Dollywood. My wife is such a crazy Dolly Parton fan that she actually received, I would say over a dozen condolence calls

Speaker C: when

Speaker B: people started finding out.

Speaker C: So

Speaker B: we are a bit of a ridiculous Dolly Parton household. So this one is more personal than some of the other ones, but yeah. Dolly sadly passed after a brief battle with cancer in August. Her death was announced the same day by her nephew, Bryan Seaver, who had served as her head of security for several decades. Parton had allegedly asked him several years prior to make the announcement, which he described as an honor that is mixed with absolute pride and great sadness. The reason I mentioned Seaver, this seemingly random individual, is because he's one of the central figures in the ongoing estate conflict that has sadly erupted in the wake of Dolly's death. The conflict here, in broad strokes, is between Seaver and She's Alive llc, the ironically named run by Porton's longtime manager, Danny Nazelle. The estate filed a lawsuit and obtained a temporary restraining order against Seaver, alleging that he'd kind of gone off the deep end and sent threatening and profane text messages and made financial and extortion demands of the estate and threatened to ruin Spartan's legacy and brand partnerships by using his background and his security connections and the knowledge that he has of, uh, the skeletons and where they're buried. Seaver himself denies making any threats. He claims the text messages were just private, frustrated rage talk between two grieving friends and have been taken grossly out of context. A key hearing in Davidson County, Tennessee, scheduled for November 3rd. Now, whether this particular conflict was inevitable or not is impossible to determine. However, one of the contributing factors most likely was the fact that Parton died lacking traditional familial heirs. Parton's longtime and famously spotlight averse husband, Carl Thomas Dean, passed roughly a year ago and the pair had no children, which, interestingly, Dali's credited the success she had in her career to being able to do the freedom of having no children, even though that wasn't necessarily her choice.

Speaker C: Yeah,

Speaker B: Nina. Although an estate plan can be created to direct assets to just about anywhere and just about anyone, the decedent would like traditional blood heirs. Nonetheless, they often play a central role in the process. What are some of the challenges faced by those who, like Dolly, pass without these more obvious direct beneficiaries?

Speaker C: Sure. And first, I do want to. I'm right there with your wife remembering. I grew up in the 80s and 90s and Dolly Parton was a big figure even for us. And I was so little at the time and I remember her very clearly in Steel Magnolias. Excellent in that movie. The famously tear jerker of a movie. And I do think it's ironic that her nephew is, like, doing security for her and now it's everything but security. That he is alleging. Yeah, no kids. You have to be prepared for that in the estate planning stage. Because the big question is who's going to get all. If you don't have children and you have to be prepared. The client should be prepared, the lawyer should prepare the clients that I'm happy to do whatever plan you want. Your. It's their decision how they dispose of their wealth. But if it's not going to go to your next in line, blood relatives, what have you, there could be something contested because a lot of people come out of the woodwork when there's a lot of money at stake and the question is always why wasn't it me? I'm related. It doesn't have to be you. Right. It's up to Dolly. Probably. This was a discussion that she had with her lawyer along the way. Yeah.

Speaker B: Uh, it's one of those things where as far as we've come from primogeniture. Right. And things like that. We. There is just the existence, the natural order of things in a way in people's heads is that like, oh, it goes to your kids and oh, your kids. It goes to your parents. The general sort of intestacy. Even if there is an estate plan, that's what people assume is going to happen. Any sort of variance from that is often seen. Even if there are kids and there's sort of a disinheritance, it's always seen as. Initially at least as. As an insult or something went wrong.

Speaker C: It's

Speaker B: like what has happened here. And so there is this sort of assumption that's how things going to go. And in the absence of those people being there, it does, as you said, open make emboldens would. If Dolly had two daughters, would a cousin would still be this bold and coming out and trying to take uh, big swings at them both because of the viewed legitimacy perhaps of their claims, whether that's not necessarily material. Right. But just in terms of in people's heads or because there is just one large inheritor. Right. Where. Oh, this is the obvious named inheritor. And I don't. I'm, um. Not to come out and challenge them would be more than I want to take on in part of. In my scamming head, so to speak.

Speaker C: And that's why those conversations are so important. As you said, a client could have children, but they want to give unequal shares to the kids. Right. That is one big note taking escapade. You want to find out why the client wants to do that. Just it's on record somewhere that if that's contested later, you can point back and say, that's really what the client intended for these reasons. So even with children, if there's something unequal, uh, um, or as you said, a disinheritance of children, that should really be. You should be asking the clients why that's the case. Getting an answer.

Speaker B: Yeah. And just to clarify, uh, these conversations should be happening both between attorney and client, and then also client and family. A lot of times, I think with these things, a lot of the discontent comes from surprise when things don't go in terms of the, oh, according to plan air quotes. I guess in this case, we're talking about God's plan, not the actual estate plan.

Speaker C: God's a great plan.

Speaker B: It's always the idea that I can't say the number of conflicts I've seen that even though they were over phenomenally large amounts of money

Speaker C: were

Speaker B: like, so not about the money.

Speaker C: Exactly.

Speaker B: And it's just we really could have easily been headed off by just mom or dad sitting down, the siblings or whoever the case may be, and just saying, uh, hey, this is what I'm doing, and this is why, more importantly, maybe why I'm doing it.

Speaker C: Clients ask me that. They're like, how much should I tell my kids? Or what? And because, remember, everything you tell your lawyer is confidential unless I get consent that I can talk to somebody else outside that about this. And it comes up too, with me looking at the wealth of, let's say, parents who are my clients, and they start to tell me one of their kids has been a rocky marriage and, oh, there might be a future divorce. Sometimes that's not a worry. And the child's about to get married. And then I mentioned prenups as a good way to protect a child's inheritance. Right. And the clients, I, uh, don't know, how am I going to raise that top? And I just say, blame your lawyer.

Speaker B: Yeah.

Speaker C: You're sitting down. I know a lot of holidays are coming up. Not a bad time to mention these hot topics. Right. Really keeps everybody together and just say, hey, I sat down with my lawyer, and she said, have you ever thought about a prenup? Because if you don't have one, here's what we risk abc. And that takes the pressure off clients to even have those types of thorny conversations with their children who are love. Right. Real estate, that's another hot topic. Dave, how do you equally split real estate if you don't? If it's just in kind.

Speaker B: Yeah. And what does equal even mean? Right. Especially if you're dealing with something that has different types of shares or anything. Like, equal is like such a crazy,

Speaker C: right?

Speaker B: Like, fungible concept.

Speaker C: Exactly. I could give people basic wills or trusts that say everything to my kids equally. We have to look at what's subject to this. Uh, if it's real estate, that's a conversation with the kids. Could be like a summer home. Are we gonna. How's it gonna be used when you're gone? Will the kids agree to either sell it, keep it, rent it, all those, you know, things have to be discussed and thought of.

Speaker B: Yeah. I like this idea. It's something we haven't really talked about on this show. Just, you know, I guess as a lawyer, I don't like to bring it up too much, but this idea. Let the lawyer bad guy with most of the talk about the next generation's relationship to mom or dad's lawyer on the show has been trying to build a relationship with them and make them trust you. Right. And I think inherent in that is the unsaid idea that people are going to start off not trusting lawyer. You're not starting from zero. You're starting from negative something. Even if. So even if you have a relationship with mom and dad, that the kids are going to meet it just because you're a lawyer, it doesn't matter that your mom's lawyer or dad's lawyer, they're still going to be like, this guy's trying to screw me. I don't trust this dude. So that's why it's important to, A, have these conversations with. With everyone, and B, if that relationship doesn't exist, you can weaponize that idea a little bit and use it to your advantage and let the lawyer take the heat because it's like, they're not going to like him anyway or her anyway. Let's just. Just to get this conversation started, I'll let the lawyer be the one who takes the fall here, and that's. And I'll get past that initial hump.

Speaker C: Yeah, blame. Blame me for raising the issue. She said, I think that we should discuss, uh, A, B and C. And oftentimes it's like, it's hard to see the mess that we're preventing. There's no mess to begin with.

Speaker B: Yeah. Because it's like, it's hard. What are you supposed to do? You can't predict every. Especially in an estate plan that's gonna. That conceivably should last into perpetuity. Right. In a perfect world where we conquer death. So that idea of something Was realistically something that's gonna last 30, 40 years. If you think how much the world has changed in the last 30, 40 years, like, that's. It's crazy to think that I could draft the document today and not touch it and have it still be completely relevant and correct in three decades is. And also have it anticipate every possible conflict that could arise. Growing family. There's just no universe.

Speaker C: It's true. And I can think of one adult child who really saw. I really got a pat on the back from him. I met with his father. Father's not married. The father told me he wanted to basically give everything to his next door neighbor. And I asked him, do you have kids? He said, yeah, I do. And the adult child that I'm referring to had no issues with his father. They weren't estranged. They talked almost, um, daily. So that. So I really had to have that conversation. Why do you want to give this stuff to your neighbor? Then he said, let me mow my lawn. From time to. The whole thing just didn't make sense, Dave. So I said, can we call your son right now? And he started crying. He's. I love that. And we got the son, and the son was like, dad, what are you talking about? So we hung up with him. And my client was like, nina, I don't know what I was thinking. I want everything to go to my son. And my other kid, he just. He just needed someone to be like, are you sure? Why are you doing this?

Speaker B: Which is interesting, right? Because he probably in his head, thought he was making this lovely gesture to his neighbor.

Speaker C: Yeah.

Speaker B: Hadn't anticipated. It's not obvious to us as outside observers to do this, but it's like you're going to destroy. Your son thinks you have this relationship, and then you're going to be gone. And unable to explain that. No, this was meant as a. Not a. A shot at you that I've secretly held some grudge, and now I'm going to. After, from beyond the grave. I'm going to enact it on you. It was just. I was thinking of doing a nice thing for my neighbor, and I hadn't completely considered all of the connotations of what that would mean.

Speaker C: It's so much education for clients and estate planning lawyers are the nosiest attorneys you'll ever meet. We have to be right? I want to know, why do you want to do this? Because it wasn't like they were strange and didn't talk for 30 years. Right. Had I not delved into that, it would have been a disastrous result when this guy passed away. That. That was a good day, A good day's work for me.

Speaker B: So I guess we want to talk a bit about some of, I guess the tools and the things to look for the thing, what we can use as attorneys or just even as professionals who are looking at someone's estate plan and we see that they don't have the obvious direct heirs that we would initially think of. Where does your mind first go as a professional when you see something like that? And in terms of both what to recommend and what the next. Okay, what's the first question I'm asking?

Speaker C: That can be hard. So I have tried to. I've only done trusted estates my whole career. So as a specialist, I've come down with this formula where I first have the clients fill out a confidential questionnaire. It's going to give me all their basic info. And probably the most important part is a list of all their assets. And this is where hopefully if they were referred by a financial advisor, the advisor can help provide all that info to. Because depending on where I start, depends so much on the amount of wealth that they have or don't have, how things are titled. If the couple doesn't have children or single person with no children, so forth. The form will ask about family, who the family members are, are they charitably inclined, do they have a history of giving gifts to charities? Now that's always an option. That's the biggie right now. People who don't have children next in line, usually nieces and nephews, if everyone gets along well sometimes. Oh, my nephew, he doesn't even. He knew I was in the hospital. He never called me, not once. Someone with no kid, they're looking out for those things and they all choose to. So it just heavily depends on family dynamics, if they have it and their inclination to give to charities.

Speaker B: And I think it's not in every case. But I think the. At least the specter of elder. Of potential elder abuse and improper influence just has to be raised when talking about this. I don't think it's so crazy unusual for someone who has no kids to maybe decide to leave a large part of their fortune or their estate to, uh, maybe a caretaker has taken care of them for 20 years and has been there, you know, and later in life has become their best friend and only connection to the outside world. Right, like that in a vacuum, that makes perfect sense. But that's also from an outside person. Looks like the textbook case of undue influence. So I Think in that area communication and record keeping are important because they show that, no, this has been my intention for quite a bit. And it's something I thought about. And it's not just like this person wrote this up and then I was passed out on my deathbed and they took my hand and signed

Speaker C: it.

Speaker B: So I think there's a lot of room for misinterpretation in that regard. So what are some ways in that if you're looking to shore up surety about leaving something to a non family member, a large amount or something like that, how. What are some good ways to go about that or some good steps to take to try to head off people looking at it askance.

Speaker C: People need to realize because I've been getting a lot of phone calls, someone's in hospice and a family, uh, member's calling because they heard them say that they wanted to make a change. And I'm like, stop right there. Person's in hospice on their close to dying, on their deathbed, and now you're calling me because they allegedly want to make changes to their estate plan like people should. So first things first, even someone in a caretaker situation, if they want to update, uh, their estate plan or create a new plan, they need to do this long before they're incapacitated or sick. And then that's why we urge people to look at the plan every couple of years. So that if you have, in your example, someone has a caretaker, if they have, if they have a caretaker because they have Alzheimer's or dementia, that's. They're not gonna be able to do anything.

Speaker B: Yeah, it's a big challenge. Yeah.

Speaker C: You know, always good to do these things while they're healthy and capacitative. So that's one thing. You can be unduly influenced by one of your children who happens to be caretaking you. A child who's local and has. Comes checks on you every day, stays with you. That could happen too. It's not. It doesn't have to be like a caretaker who's a stranger things to guard against that. You hear about it all the time where the one child out of three drives the parent to the appointment to see the lawyer, stays in the room the whole time. I understand that elderly people need assistance, uh, to get from one place to another, but when I see that situation, I always ask to meet with the parent alone in the room. I'm looking for capacity issues. I'm looking to see if what they tell me is coming from them only and not because of an influence of A child or any other third party will signings are just could be a potential battlefield for a contest later on. Um, clients should be signing with just them in the room and the lawyer and the two witnesses.

Speaker B: Classic law school example of the will signing at the cocktail party or something.

Speaker C: Law school. They still beat it into us that you go to a cle if there's an ethics section, they're staring the pants off you with all these. The child like walking back and forth, peering in through the glass conference room to see. So all those measures we put in and that's really the best we can do, Dave. I mean, at note take it, I met with them alone, asked them questions. That's the best we can do.

Speaker B: Yeah. I think it's also important to point out that that may not necessarily have sinister intent. That child may m just be sitting there because they want to make sure their parent understands everything and they don't necessarily aren't realizing that they're subliminally influencing what's happening here by just by being present.

Speaker C: Yeah, we just leave them once alone even to just confirm what was just said with the child there just once. Often cases that's enough.

Speaker B: So you mentioned the intersection between attorneys and financial advisors. And I think this sort of area is a really interesting place just because the financial advisors are the ones where we're going to give you the broadest look at all of the assets they're going to give you. They see that they interact with the clients the most often very likely in terms of from at least from the advisory team standpoint. And so they're going to know at least vaguely what the big picture looks like, where all the assets are. But the estate planning attorney is the one who's like you said, is going to ask the intrusive questions and find out where the bodies are buried for no pun intended there. This idea. Well, it's from the financial advisor is the one who's going to know that, oh, he has a building that he owns with his brother. The estate planner is the one that's going to find out that they hate each other

Speaker C: and we're going to confirm title to that real

Speaker B: estate. On paper, this is just, oh, they both own this. No problem. In terms of an estate plan, you're going to find out, oh, actually this is a big problem potentially because these two hate each other and we really need to figure this out. So I think that in a lot of areas that's a symbiotic relationship that ideally should be existing between the advisory team, be it Their financial advisor and the estate planner or whoever. The most common touch point happens to be for that particular client.

Speaker C: I honestly, I love having a team surrounded by Bramba clients because I believe very much in staying in one's lane. I don't, I'm not a finance. I don't know like how to uh. If I did, I probably wouldn't be an estate planning lawyer. I'd make millions like invested. I have no idea. I don't have the licenses for that. The financial advisors do. So I often want to keep them involved in these conversations if we have to. If I see that there's going to be an inheritance tax and we need a source to pay, I'll talk with them about what's best to sell or to keep and just have those conversations. Same thing with life insurance professionals, especially with our younger clients who have little babies. Maybe one is the sole breadwinner they really should have think about life insurance at least. I like to have a life insurance person on my team.

Speaker B: Lock in some sort of awesome rate too, while you're helping.

Speaker C: Yeah, yeah, exactly. Very helpful to have everyone in the same room.

Speaker B: But yeah, the team is very important and I think this is a sort of a mindset that's largely dying out but still persists in some pockets. The idea of that, the reticence to send someone across the street, oh, they're going to poach my clients. It's like people nowadays. Everyone has infinite options for everything. There's no way to keep them completely in house and prevent them from finding out what the offer someone else has. That's a silly concern if they trust you and you just have to let them go and assume they'll come back. So I think that was a big impediment in previous decades to this idea of an advisory team was trying to. I don't trust them that they're going to try to steal my clients. And nowadays I think we really have to get over that. Largely we have. But still there's some that hold out the idea that everyone's trying to steal your clients now. You're better off working as a team. The number of clients you gain from having these relationships far greater than the number of clients who get poached.

Speaker C: And I'm kind of old school in that way where the day may come where I need a really good financial advisor and I want to know that I can send them to this person who's not mad at me for something. And it's just I'm kind of old school in that way and I think I agree with you. The world is better if we can all just work together and do what's best for the client at the end of the day.

Speaker B: So that's about all the time we have. Nina, I'd love to thank you for coming on and having this kind of, uh, whirlwind conversation of topics with me. This has been really fun.

Speaker C: I appreciate it. Thanks, Dave.

Speaker B: And, uh, for our listeners, I'll see you. Or I guess you'll hear me on the next episode of Celebrity Estates Wills of the Rich and Famous.

Speaker A: Thank you for listening to the Celebrity Estates Wills of the Rich and Famous podcast. Click the subscribe button below to become notified when new episodes become available. The information covered and posted represents the views and opinions of the guest and does not necessarily represent the views or opinions of informawealthmanagement.com the content has been made available for informational and educational purposes only. The content is not intended to be a substitute for professional investing advice. Always seek the advice of your financial advisor or other qualified financial service provider with any questions you may have regarding your investment plan. Planning.