[playingalong]

> back

To whom? The deceased person?

[Joeboy]

To whoever legitimately won the inheritance lottery, I guess.

[tossandthrow]

Well, then ex girlfriend would be the one who legitimately won the lottery.

[Brian_K_White]

That is literally debatable. The definition of legitimately in this case is literally not clear and quite arguable. You have merely picked a side, not pointed out some obvious definitive truth.

The ex legitimately has a claim. The strength of the claim is still to be decided.

[tossandthrow]

Some one challenged the ex getting the money. Until there is a decision, she is the legitimate beneficiary.

I can not just challenge something with you to make it not legitimate.

This is like not guilty until proven different.

[Brian_K_White]

If the process by which one becomes a beneficiary is swiss cheese, that does matter.

That changes the strength of the very word beneficiary in the statement "beneficiary until proven otherwise". It's now only "maybe beneficiary until proven otherwise."

In other words, arguable, requiring to be determined.

You're not the thing until proven otherwise, the thing has to be proven in the first place now.

[tossandthrow]

Beneficiary until proven otherwise. That sounds precise. If you are in poor belief that you really are not the beneficiary, I would take care spending the money!

That is how it always has been.

The tax agency can come back 5 years later and ammend You tax filling.

The same here. You announce who the beneficiary is (the ex girlfriend), someone challenges that, but that does not change the beneficiary until the decision has been made.

I don't really see other ways it could work?

> You're not the thing until proven otherwise, the thing has to be proven in the first place now.

You misunderstand. You are the thing until proven otherwise.

[Arnt]

To the estate, in which case the next beneficiary gets the ducats. After the ones that are named in the testament, the law specifies beneficiaries.

[toast0]

The deceased person's estate, yeah. Often it's possible to simply disclaim an inheritance and you would therefore never receive the money; but sometimes that means it would go to your heirs.

With a $1M account, it's a lot easier to say you would return it than to actually do it though. That's life changing money and it's hard to say no to life changing money.

[scotty79]

Yeah. To their "estate". It's mentioned that some of his assets that didn't have a beneficiary named landed there and I think they were to be split according to the will of the deceased.

[Vvector]

There was no will, no spouse, no children.

"He died at 59, single and childless, with no will and no guidance on who should inherit his assets."

[scotty79]

Ok, in case when there's no will there's path of inheritance defined by law. It's still the best way to go forward.

Parents, siblings, siblings children.

[Vvector]

My understanding is that beneficiary trumps a will, and definitely trumps the default when there is no will.

What would be the point of a beneficiary if it gets ignored even without a will?

[scotty79]

I think beneficiary trumps everything. But we are talking about what you could do with the money if you were (undeserving) beneficiary. Giving it back to the dead person (precisely donating it to their estate) is the right thing to do although probably imperfect because donations are often taxed.