What happened:
Fester Addams, a wealthy bachelor, wants nothing more than to find a great love like that between his older brother Gomez and his wife Morticia, but he is too trusting and easily deceived. After the birth of Gomez and Morticia’s third child, Pubert, they hire a nanny named Debbie. Fester is soon smitten with Debbie, but his niece, Wednesday, wise beyond her years, quickly realizes that Debbie is only interested in Fester’s money and confronts her. In retaliation, Debbie convinces everyone to send Wednesday and Pugsley to summer camp.
With the kids out of the way, Debbie and Fester are quickly engaged and married. After Debbie has cemented the relationship, she isolates Fester from his family and decides to spend as much of Fester’s money as possible before killing him. After three failed attempts by Debbie, Fester finally wakes up.
Fester flees to the Addams family mansion and his family. Debbie invades the mansion and tries to kill the entire family, but baby Pubert saves the day by electrocuting him. Soon after, Fester finds true love when he meets a woman named Dementia and they live strangely at times.
What should have happened:
Grandma Eudora Addams, founder of Eudora’s Essential Skincare, made a fortune selling high-quality skin care products for extremely pale skin. Represented by Rivkin Radler corporate attorney Kate Heptig, Eudora has just acquired an EU-based skin care company. While toasting the purchase, Eudora asks Kate if she knows a lawyer who does wills. “I know the best lawyers who do wills. Let me introduce you to my partners, Wendy and Jen, you’re going to love it. Wendy is extremely pale, and Jen is a murder podcast fan – you’ll be like three peas in a pod.
Eudora tells Wendy and Jenny that she has two grown children. Here is Gomez, who is married to Morticia. Morticia (“Tish”) is the daughter of Mama Frump, founder of Granny Frump’s Exotic Fro-Yo. Gomez and Tish run and own a successful conglomerate company and have three children: Pugsley, Wednesday and Pubert. Eudora’s other son, Fester, is single and a nice person, but he has executive function problems and is as trusting as a child. Fester lived with her well into adulthood, and then moved in with Gomez and Tish after their first child was born. Fester never lived on his own. He doesn’t know how to cook, clean or manage money, but he directs and manages most other aspects of his life.
After Pubert was born, Gomez and Tish hired a nanny, Debbie, who took an unusual interest in Fester. Eudora does not want to upset Fester, but she is deeply concerned that Debbie’s interest is not genuine. While Eudora is concerned about preserving Fester’s ultimate legacy, she is more concerned that Debbie will break Fester’s heart and destroy all the self-confidence he worked so hard to develop.
Wendy and Jen identify several areas that Eudora should consider addressing, including:
- Donating assets to reduce her federal and state estate tax liability;
- Generation skipping to avoid increasing Gomez’s tax liability;
- Creating a protective trust for Fester to ensure that a trusted person will manage the assets that Eudora gives/leaves to Fester while protecting him from creditors and predators (as an added bonus, this can also reduce Fester’s exposure if he marries without a prenuptial agreement); AND
- Protective trusts for grandchildren to manage their assets until they are financially mature.
Wendy and Jenny explain that the goal would be to treat each of Eudora’s children equally while addressing their individual circumstances.
Eudora exclaims: “Yes! These are exactly the things that bother me!! What do I do next?” Wendy and Jen present Eudora with a detailed engagement agreement, which specifies the services to be provided and the fee structure for those services.
Eudora creates lifetime gift trusts, which allow her to use her annual gift tax exemption and her annual gift tax exemption for bequests generated by her grandchildren and more distant descendants, which excludes these assets. donated by property taxes.
Eudora also creates a revocable trust that becomes irrevocable upon her death. Eudora’s revocable trust creates additional trusts that bypass Fester and Gomez’s estates but can be used for their benefit. The trusts appoint Granny Frump as the independent trustee of the trusts, with each son acting as a co-trustee without the power to make distributions. Cousin It is designated as Granny Frump’s trusted successor, with Thing as Cousin It’s successor. The trust has provisions that protect assets if a grandchild is under the age of 45 when their parent dies.
When Debbie discovers that Fester’s legacy overrides his wife, she loses interest and refocuses on being a good nanny. Fester meets Demyn, a lovely woman who shares many of his interests and has worked for Cousin It for years.
Demy encourages Fester to become more involved with Eudora’s Essential Skincare business. Fester develops a line of vitamin D supplements that mimic the body’s exposure to sunlight, so extremely pale people don’t need to go outside with their big hats and sunscreen. Fester and Demy feature prominently in the eponymous ad campaign “Let the sun shine – but not on me!” Wendy is their first customer.
It is especially important to work with a knowledgeable trusts and estates attorney when planning for vulnerable family members and family members with taxable assets.
Save the drama for the movies.