From disowning a child to secretly leaving everything to a stranger, people have written many unexpected things in their wills that are only revealed to their family members after their demise. Many times, people have used this closing act to take revenge on their loved ones. With age, many people tend to think about what would happen to their loved ones after death.
They know there’s only much they can do to support them, and with that comes the thought of writing a will. The final document decides what would happen to their assets and property after their death. Many people write their will when they are healthy and doing fine, but others do it after the doctors tell them they don’t have much time to live.
Some divide their assets into parts and leave them for their close ones, while others write something unpredictable that shocks their family. Netizens on Reddit shared some of the craziest and most bizarre things people wrote in their wills. Many of their family members had no idea what was coming their way.
1. The Unexpected Trust Fund
u/scarlett_pimpernel: I am a qualified solicitor. A lady wanted to create a trust fund of £100,000 for her pet fish.
When I asked if it was a particular type of fish, she confirmed it was just an ordinary goldfish. She wanted it to be fed fresh avocado daily and looked after by a local dog walker after she died. She was absolutely serious.
2. No One Knows about Her
u/scarlett_pimpernel: Another lady confessed she had a secret daughter and wanted to leave the daughter some money and photographs without the rest of her family finding out. Even her husband does not know.
That will be a fun conversation when she passes away. 3. The Lucky Man
u/mommy5dearest: I worked at an attorney’s office, and a little older lady gave her house and belongings to a bus driver.
She did it because he was nice to her and would help her. We were all waiting for hell to break loose when her family found out. Her family can contest it.
I was a witness to the signing. She seemed fine and knew the answers to the questions, so she wasn’t having mental problems as far as we could tell. 4.
The Interesting Clause
u/WanderCold: I was in my early twenties when I was forced to write a will because of the health insurance I got at work. I discussed it with the in-house lawyer, who approved this specific clause to be added to my will. The clause read, “My funeral wishes are that I should be buried in a coffin which has been springloaded, such that opening the coffin would cause alarm to future archeologists.”
Then, a bunch of stuff about if this is too costly, I’d be cremated and have my ashes scattered in a specific place.
5. Don’t Forget My Horse! u/gabberrella24: I work in probate.
The oddest thing I’ve seen in a will is to euthanize their beloved horse, have it cremated, and its ashes scattered with the decedent. Lucky for her horse, she named a horse that was already dead when she passed away, so the one she got afterward lived to see another farm. 6.
A List of Strange Wills
u/PirateRobotNinjaofDe: Lots of people send their friends and family on weird errands to spread their ashes (leaving money for people to take trips and spread their ashes around the world). Pet trusts are a fun one. People leave a whole whack of money in a trust to be used for the care of their pets during their life.
However, my favorite ever (that I obviously didn’t draft) was a lawyer who left the bulk of his estate (millions in today’s dollars) to whatever Toronto-area woman had the most children at a specific date some years later. I recall the winner had 10. 7.
My Grandfather’s Wish
u/snoboreddotcom: A few hours after my grandfather’s death, my grandmother came to me with a navy-blue tie featuring pink elephants. Ridiculous looking, but she said he wore it to intimidate people in business, as someone willing to wear such a ridiculous tie doesn’t care about what people think. That scares people.
He wanted me to have it so I could do the same. 8. Different Wishes
u/ALighterShadeOfPale: I work for a lawyer who does wills.
We’ve had a lady put in her will that one of her adult sons would receive his share when he visited a dentist, and the other son would get it if he lost 70lbs. Another lady put in her will that she wanted her cats cremated with her when she died. We told her that would not happen since human and animal remains are not cremated together.
So, she settled on cremated separately and joined together, then buried together. 9. The Long Will
u/ALighterShadeOfPale: Typically, wills are about ten pages long (for an average person), but a woman once wrote 56 pages.
She detailed EVERYTHING from her house to people. For example, she wrote, “wooden ladle to ____, toilet paper holder to ____, magazine basket to ____.” She did this for every single item in her house. 10.
She Wanted to Be with Her Husband
u/ALighterShadeOfPale: A lady told us to put in her will that she wanted to be buried on her property next to her husband. She lived on a small rural property. It’s totally illegal to have human remains buried there.
She refused to tell us whether her husband was cremated or not and said she did not want to be cremated. Edit: Her husband had died 5 or 6 years prior. So, it’s not as though it was 50 years ago when things like that may have been a little overlooked.
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