17 Lawyers Whose Will Reading Stories Have a Plot Twist Worthy of Hitchcock

Will readings are shown to be quite the spectacle in movies and TV, but when it comes to real life, things are different—right? Well, you could be wrong, given the sheer drama in these last wills and testaments that lawyers had to go through and inform the heirs about. From strange demands to petty revenge, these wills have all the entertainment you need this week.

• “To my wife, I leave her lover and the knowledge that I was never the fool she thought me. To my son, I leave the pleasure of working for a living — for 25 years, he thought the pleasure was all mine.” Best DISS ever. Was in my Wills & Trusts book in law school as an example of people putting in drama in their wills (you’re supposed to discourage them as lawyers from doing so). DoctorDanDrangus / Reddit
• My estate planning professor told us about a guy who had two families, neither of which knew about the other until it was time to read the will. This wasn’t like a love child/mistress type scenario, both were nuclear multi-kid families. Both families showed up for what had to be one of the most awkward will readings in history. I don’t really know how he pulled it off, other than that he was away on “business” frequently. PrivateEyesWatchingU / Reddit
• We had a client, a widowed farmer who owned several pieces of heavy equipment (Caterpillar trucks, etc.). He had two sons who were already working with him at the farm and a daughter who was working in the city. He willed the heavy equipment to the daughter. When asked why, since this equipment was essential to the farm, he said that the farm was to go to his kids equally. His girl needed to know he always wanted her to join their venture and dispel her notions of alienation because she was a girl. nerdychick19 / Reddit
• When my dad’s mother died, her will stipulated that everything was to be liquidated, and the money distributed equally between her children and grandchildren.
  Fine, but literally everything had to be sold. There were family heirlooms, jewelry, things my grandfather (a carpenter) had made. So many sentimental family things that my father and his siblings badly wanted, but it all had to be sold. They all went to the auction to try to buy some of the more sentimental items, but weren’t always successful. It was heartbreaking, and I’m not sure what made my grandmother think it would be a good idea. Nobody wanted the money; they wanted her wedding ring, and the clocks my grandfather had made, and all that.
  miss-robot / Reddit

• Not me, but my friend’s father’s father died, and he said when he reviewed the will with his lawyer (and his sister), it said to give 100% of the assets to his sister. He said he had no idea why his father did that, he wasn’t on bad terms or anything. It was shocking to him. The sister didn’t share anything with him either, and they were on pretty good terms (before that).
  Unknown author / Reddit
• I once had to tell the son of the deceased that his mother’s priceless “Boy with Apple” painting was willed to a hotel concierge. Fighting_Trousers_ / Reddit
• There was a guy in the 1800s that left his estate to his great-grandchildren because he didn’t want his actual children to benefit at all. I think they only recently received the money.
  skatastic57 / Reddit
• A relative worked for a firm preparing wills and was confronted by an executor who had an edict to “scatter the deceased’s ashes from a microlight aircraft”. He couldn’t fly one. She kindly pointed out to him that the drafting said nothing about whether said microlight was in flight at the time of scattering. Womblechops / Reddit
• 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. scarlett_pimpernel / Reddit

• 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.
  nelson227 / Reddit
• When my great-aunt with whom I barely had any relationship with died, I discovered that in her will, she left me a taxidermy giant silk moth that she had hanging on her wall. Evidently, someone told her about my love for bugs. I still have it, and it’s one of the coolest things in my collection of odd knick-knacks. She left my cousin a Furby. PBandJoe / Reddit
• Not a will, but a deed. The City I work for was renovating a small park that was donated to the city in the 1910s. We went looking through the handwritten deed for easements or other restrictions and found that the family could claw the property back if the park were not, “perpetually provided with a fountain of pleasant, running water fit for consumption by man and beast alike.” The family still has descendants in town, so we installed a new water fountain with a dog bowl filler just to be safe. Sandor17 / Reddit
• 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 hated the cats, but the kids wouldn’t let them get rid of the cats. Dr_BrOneil / Reddit
• 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. Processtour / Reddit

• An aging woman my family knew left her large, beautiful house and estate to family friends. But this was only till 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 said cats are still alive. Also, they’ve changed color. EndlessArgument / Reddit
• Best will story that I personally know. The father had a valuable antique Grandfather Clock, he also had 2 daughters. His solution: If I die on an even day, daughter A gets the clock, an odd day and daughter B gets it. The daughter who did not get the clock got an equivalent cash award based on the value of the clock. I know of the event because I had to service the clock several times over the years. chronos56 / Reddit
• [Edited] My grandfather had PTSD. It got worse in his later years, and he would often isolate himself from the rest of the family. My grandmother would tell us stories about how he had inherited a significant amount of money from his father way back. Fast forward to his death just a couple of months back, we found out he had written a will.
  Even my grandmother didn’t know about it. We all had assumed he wouldn’t have much to leave, since most of the money he had saved was going towards taking care of him. Upon his passing, his will mentioned a massive warehouse full of vintage cars, worth millions. He left it to his son, my father. We had no idea this collection ever existed.
  We went to check out the warehouse, and, sure enough, it looked well-maintained. When we finally opened the shutter, we were shocked to find, absolutely nothing. Besides a few homeless people that managed to sneak in through a hole in the corrugated metal around back, there was no car collection.
  To this day, we still don’t know what happened. We all just assume that the PTSD caused him to create some kind of fantasy in his mind. Unknown author / Reddit

Clearly, there’s no dearth of gossip in families—just like these grandmas, whose secret stashes caused chaos and hilarity.