Your will   is constructed to help your family manage the disposal of your estate when you’ve passed away. Whilst yours may be simple, here are one or two unusual ones.

Will’s The Last Laugh
It is sensible to make a will. The majority of us know that, but actually doing it seems such a bother.  How much consideration went in these “wills with a difference”?

Even the celebrated magician and escapologist, Harry Houdini, couldn’t escape death. Having perished from a ruptured appendix, one of his biggest surprises came with the reading of his will. His magicians equipment went to his former partner Theodore, who was in addition his brother. His magical skills didn’t work on the next items – his bountiful collection of books on magic and the occult. He left these to the American Society for Psychical Research, but with the requirement that the research officer J Malcolm Bird, who additionally was the editor of their journal, resigned. They rejected the conditions the collection was given to the Library of Congress.

The white rabbits that he used in his performance left their hats and were divided around the children of friends. Continuing the odd style, his left his wife 10 words, which was a secret code, with the promise that he would use these words to contact her from the afterlife. Every year for ten years, following his death, she reliably held séances, but Harry never made contact.

Kozmic Blues and rock singer Janis Joplin had a short but memorable history. She recorded several rock anthems and four albums, including “To Love Somebody” and “Me and Bobby McGee”. After years of substance abuse, she passed away from an overdose, aged twenty seven. Two days before her demise in 1970 her  online wills      the sum of 2,500 dollars to fund an all night wake at her favourite bar so that her friends could “get blasted after I’m gone.” It must have been some celebration – that was a sizable amount of cash back in 1970.

We’ve all read about people that, randomly, leave all their estate to the dogs’ home, much to the anger of their relatives. Many family feuds start when a will is read. As long as there is no reason to doubt the clarity and freewill of the person when the will is written, there is often little that can be done to object to such a decision.

Eccentricities apart, if you die without writing a will, the people who you would want to inherit wont always be the ones that do so. You could have a partner of many years, but if you’re not married or in a legal partnership, he or she won’t receive your money, heedless of your intentions and assurances. This can be upsetting when it’s not clearly stated and can cause awkward financial results.

The up to date method to get your will under way is to go online and find a cheaper wills      . However basic your intentions are, it’s best to get the professionals to write it for you and you can be sure that you’re leaving your estate exactly how you would wish them to be.