Heirs split estate after 92 years

[Summers J]

http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/43098...onaire-misers-heirs-finally-split-m?GT1=43001


After 92 years, millionaire miser’s heirs finally split $100M

In bizarre bequest, it was locked away until 21 years after last grandchild dies

By Scott Stump
TODAY.com contributor TODAY.com contributor
updated 5/27/2011 8:56:52 AM ET 2011-05-27T12:56:52


In 1919, he was a greedy multimillionaire who didn’t want to see his family get its hands on the vast fortune he’d amassed as a lumber baron.

But in 2011, Wellington R. Burt is the sort of generous benefactor who usually exists only in daydreams — the long-lost relative you never met who leaves you millions of dollars.

With the conditions of a strange will — which barred any money from his estate being distributed until 21 years after the death of his last grandchild — having been met, 12 of Burt’s descendants split a fortune estimated at about $100 million. By 5 p.m. on Monday, each of those 12 became instant millionaires after Saginaw, Mich., County Chief Probate Judge Patrick McGraw ordered full distribution of the estate by that deadline.

It took 20 attorneys working together to get it done, and Citizens Bank Wealth Management, the estate’s trustee, paid out the fortune on Monday.

The lucky dozen
When Burt died in Saginaw in March 1919 at the age of 87, he was one of the eight richest men in America, as well as a former mayor of the city and Michigan state senator. Most likely as a result of a family conflict at the time, he did not want to leave any substantial amount of his money to his immediate family — so he made his strange stipulation when he hand-wrote his will in 1917.

His last grandchild died in 1989, but it wasn’t until 2010 that a group of Burt’s descendants began the legal proceedings to reach an agreement to disburse his fortune. Thirty of them applied to claim a piece of that pile of money, but genealogical research whittled them down to the lucky group of 12.

The recipients range in age from 19 to 94 years old, and live in eight different states; only one lives in Michigan. The lucky dozen have succeeded where six children, seven grandchildren, six great-grandchildren and 11 great-great-grandchildren could not. That group either was banned from receiving a large inheritance by Burt’s will, or died in the 92-year waiting period before an agreement was finally reached.

While many would be high-fiving everyone in sight after learning the news, it barely merited a shrug from one of Burt’s great-great-great-granddaughters, 19-year-old Christina Alexander Cameron, even though she and her sister Cory each inherited a reported $2.6 to $2.9 million.

That is small change compared to the estimated $14.5 million to $16 million that was paid to the biggest beneficiary, but it is still life-changing money. Still, “I’d rather not rely on it,’’ Christina Cameron told the Saginaw News. “I’ll probably just save it. I don’t know; it’s just not as big of a deal to me as it was to most of my family.”
What may have made the reward bittersweet for Cameron is that her grandfather, John Scott Lansill Jr., and her mother, Julia Burt Lansill Cameron, were each in line to receive what is now her share of the estate. Both have died in the past two years; her mother was only 50 when she died in February 2010.
“I guess all of this happening within a year made this seem more like a curse,” Cameron told the Saginaw News.

The ‘golden egg’
The most that any of Burt’s immediate family ever received out of the estate he once referred to as “the golden egg” was a $30,000 annual payment to a “favorite son,’’ according to the Saginaw News. The other children were left with anything from $1,000 to $5,000 a year — amounts similar to what Burt left his secretary, housekeeper, chauffeur and cook. The tightfisted millionaire removed a $5,000 annuity from one of his daughters because she got divorced.

Since Burt’s death, his descendants tried multiple times to get portions of the “golden egg” by attempting to break the trust in court, but none was successful in having any significant part of his estate awarded. The strange case, which became public earlier this month, has drawn headlines from Taiwan to Serbia. Historian Thomas B. Mudd told NBC News that it was “one of the most bizarre, if not the most bizarre, ways of distributing money after death that I have ever run into.”

A son, three daughters and four granddaughters were able to scrape away $720,000 in cash and title in 1920 from iron mine leases that Burt controlled in Minnesota, and in 1961, a group of descendants was able to grab $700,000 in a settlement for a suit brought against the trust. Still, no one could fully get their hands on an estate estimated as the biggest that any judge has ever dealt with in Saginaw history.

The heirs actually petitioned to leave $1 million in the account, but McGraw denied the request. McGraw told the Saginaw News that the attorneys for the heirs most likely wanted to leave money in there for potential trustee fees in case attorneys questioned the estate records at a later date.

Thus a case that McGraw called “one of the most complicated research projects’’ in his 12-year tenure, one that was the talk of the local courthouse for years, finally has come to a close. After 92 years, Burt’s remains remain in a 15-foot-high white mausoleum in Forest Lawn Cemetery in Saginaw — but the iron grip he kept on his vast fortune has finally been released.

 

[you are my muse...]

Sounds like he was related to Warren Buffett.

 

[Brandon G]

It was his money, he had the right to do with it as he saw fit. Good for him!

 

[Pompal 09.]

And we wonder how the rich get all of their money.

 

[Pompal 09.]

$30,000 annual payment to his “favorite son.’’ ONLY :shock:


This guy sure was a giver.

 

[superlisa96]

I second that. How much that his lawyers keep of it?.

 

[brazil201]

That is what I was wondering.....20 lawyers working for how long? jesus the bill would be staggering.....

I know it was a different time in 1919, I wonder what the family did to piss him off? I know one got a divorce...

But really, I have a problem with passing along huge amounts of money to next of kin. As Bill Gates stated when interviewed about giving away his fortune: they have enough to lead a good life, I'm giving the rest away so others may have a chance at a decent life.

It is widely known that the top 1% hold 97% of the wealth and all the tax breaks they get are supposed to be used as investments to create jobs, start companies and contribute to society. But honestly there are few and far between who actually do that.

It's supposed to be called the trickle down effect but many studies have shown that sfa is trickling down. I mean, how does buying a rolls royce corniche help the society you live in? It doesn't.....

 

[Engel -]

I'm talking US and Canada....least, that's the last I heard. I also heard that 97% of the growth in North America was realized by the top 1% also....

the point I'm trying to make is you could effectively employ (doing nothing at all I might add) 100 people, at a salary of $50,000.00 per year, for 25 yrs with that 100 million. From that $50K per person, they would most likely spend 95% of that and put that back into the economy.

I honestly feel that the current economic situation in the world is based upon the fact that the elite, finally lost a shit load of their money to the poor or middle class. The money loaned out went SOMEWHERE, it didn't just evaporate. For eg: all those houses that were bought and the loans not repaid? Someone had to either sell the land, sell the house or build it....

I seriously think we had the oppurtunity to reorganize our financial society. Remove the "power" from the money players and put it into the hands of the people. I feel they should have let the banks fail.....what's that saying? sometimes you have to destroy before you can rebuild......

 

[912project.com]

can I ask where you got this data from?

 

[Lihua Emily Bai]

As one of those links says, it's hard to measure....but one explanation is the top 20% hold 84% of the wealth......still, that's pretty dramatic.....

maybe this is where the data got misunderstood:

"But between 1992 and 2004, their share grew to 25.3% of the income pie.
That doesn’t sound like much, but that’s a 4.3% increase in the share of all income earned in Canada, in a statistic that usually doesn’t change much.
And it turns out the higher the income scale you go, the more money the richest of Canadians made: More than 90% of the gain in income share among the richest 5% went to the richest 1% of Canadians. Half of that gain went to the richest 0.1%. And remarkably, 20% of the gain went to the richest of the rich, the millionaires sitting in the top 0.01% of Canada’s income scale."

Ok, so the top 5% took in 25.3% of the total income earned in canada. The key factor is the bolded part above.....

 

[parijatha]

Maybe I dropped an O lol....but I did say wealth, not necessarily income.....but still, it's pretty obvious that the lions share of all aspects of our economy fall into the hands of few. I also found it interesting that in the more developed OECD the disparity between the rich and the poor is greatest. I forget which link of yours it was on, but the US wealthy are 15 times more wealthy (I think that's what it said) than the poor where the world average is something like 9 (?).

I don't think taxing them is the right answer, the government will just squander the funds. I think giving them a choice between spending it domestically, or being taxed is the way to go. For eg: removing tax shelters after a net worth of x amount, or investing in domestic companies. Then having the profits of those investments either taxed, or reinvested. For eg: earn $1,000,000.00 by investing in a start up company, lose 50% to tax, or reinvest that 50% back into the company.

As I said: that 100 million could keep 100 people gainfully employed for 25+ years. Even if those people didn't actually make anything, it would still be better for the economy than giving it to 5 people.

Which is one thing I think Bill and Melinda Gates are a little misguided about. They are spending millions teaching east indians how to have more babies survive birth. I realize we have to help our fellow man, but when you look out your window and see abject poverty right at home, why take the money OUT of the country? (plus most underdeveloped countries don't need more births, they need less.....)

I think the clincher for me was when I built a walk in closet for an uppity up. She had 100 pairs of (summer) shoes, the cheapest pair were $350.00, the average were $700.00. Now I seem to recall the total value of one season's shoes (she had hundreds more off season in storage) was somewhere around $70,000.00. Seriously? really? is that really necessary? There isn't that many days in the season to be able to wear each pair for 1 day.